We spend much of the afternoon drawing pictures in our notebooks
and moving bare feet through the grass.
The grass is wet over the earth, and it’s cold outside.
In the cafe it’s impossible to believe
that our parents met so young, like us, with no clear plan.
Now we’re sitting across from each other,
each one of us drinking a hot drink with steam in our glasses,
your chamomile, and my hot cocoa. We don’t like coffee,
it makes us frantic as little birds.
You’re only here for the day, but for the moment,
silence is better.
We draw pictures again.
This is me: a bubble, with a bulge, a quirk.
This is you: another bubble, with another quirk.
They are overlapped and shaded, which makes you smile.
A line: this is the ground.
Our brother, who is not here right now: he is a building,
foundations carved deep into the earth, spire shooting upward.
I am a nearby tree, shorter, and wide,
branching in all directions and reaching into the dark with my roots.
They don’t touch, the building and the tree.
But we are here, on Earth the three of us,
and always in our human forms. In my mind we are on a hill.
We are as tall as windmills.
✤