Letter from Sophia

In the beginning, we walked through the pines
The manzanita, the Indian paintbrushes, and other things
We did not know names for. Along these trails
Populated by blue jays and other songbirds
We wandered, centralized by a rock we would not climb.
Her clothes, buy turn, I would mentally note:
By brand, by size by color
And remove while she talked plainly,
Observing I in her soft drawl nothing of a pained nature.

I paused with afternoon sun
In my face, marred
Suddenly by a passing cloud;
Standing next to a snowflower,
Took a drink of water.

Miriam sat at the window, dirty on the outside,
At a table of white pine,
Reading from a periodical about the giants
Of industry and protocol. Her eyes flaring
Momentarily (something I missed) she stood,
Ran down the hallway where the mirror
Greeted everyone at last. The sound of the bathroom
Door closing was what I heard but all I saw
Was the curling piece of green ribbon
Hanging from the mirror that Sophia had placed there.

In the mirror all I could see was nakedness. Then,
At the table I tried to discern
What mystery had upset Miriam, my other,
Only to realize I was visibly exposed to the street,
To the public, lurking outside, the faces of buildings
Stretched here and there. A woman dressed in tweed
In the fashion of a man, her face all but a prune
In the hot sun, showed her disapproval, her distaste.
Why she stopped to pursue her judgment of my indiscretion
Is a "mystery" to me; leaves above the window,
In the garden, twittered from cat caught in their tree.

I closed the blinds but it did not help.
I tried to comfort Miriam but could not.
I called my father but he was nowhere
To be found. I opened a letter
From my sister but had forgotten
The dialect of that censored tribe.
It was not signed, as was Sophia's pleasure,
But had in place an arm, a hand
With one finger outstretched. At mother's
For coffee I asked her, "What does it mean?"
She withheld an answer, smiling, as though a dream

And lit a cigarette, her third. Miriam was home
In the bath, with candles. Sophia gave birth to a baby girl.
My father was everywhere: in the capital,
In the church, at Paul's flat throwing dice.