Still Life

I watch you sleeping there, pale against the stark sheet, your long hair, a fine, light brown, spreading over the edge of the pillow.  Night has come and peopled this plain room with crisp shadows.  From this breeze that moves, but does not cool, the drapes seem to be in flight, their nondescript design lost in the dark walls.  I light a candle and the glow flickers across my eyes, these sad eyes fixed on your lovely face. If you were to awaken now, you would not even see them, even as the candle's glow dances about.  I'm remembering your eyes, very blue, dark, intense, indifferent to change, like hard, cold diamonds mined from the earth.  They have an unusual clarity about them that words cannot really capture and now, of course, they are closed.  Softly you breathe, the air climbing gently out of your nostrils, your head resting against the pillow.  Your one hand relaxes on your abdomen, rising and falling subtly.  Your other hand is at your side and the fingers are raised, poised, and my eyes stare gravely at the ring on your finger. It is strangely chipped, scratched but, even in its ugliness, it has a certain affinity for your hand.  I am brought here now - to this town, this house, this room - by a key, newly made.  I look at you, my sister, recalling our lifelong history.  Your skin is still smooth with only the tiniest of wrinkles creeping out of the corners of your eyes.  I am younger but my face is rougher with very different eyes; yours are shy and yielding - mine are bold, unafraid.  I have walked along these gray, sterile streets, searching for this house.  I have seen these stifled people on their front steps waiting for someone, something.  Their eyes followed me as I arrived and opened the door with this key you sent me. And with that act, turning the key, opening the door, I have piqued their interest.  It would be your custom to laugh if I told you that, just before I walked in, I was going to shout something...something shocking. Of course I did nothing of the sort. And so I entered the house.  I called out for you, but there was no answer and now I find you in here.  It was only when I received the key that I knew I had to be here.  You made it impossible for me to refuse. We are brother and sister and somehow we knew this would happen.  I haven't seen you for so long.  Your child was born only two years ago and his picture is in my wallet now.  He had the same blue eyes that you have.  I could see you in his eyes.  But now I can only think of him and know that he is gone.  I suddenly feel a wave of air - this time cool - lash through the screened window and wonder why, in God's name, he was taken from you.  I am thinking of you now, younger, sitting at a table, doing your homework.  It was difficult for you as a child. You were shy, insecure.  You tried to fix it - the feeling of unworthiness, the fear of never being comfortable with anyone except me...you grew to fear being judged, of not measuring up.  You did not want to go anywhere, too afraid of being watched, the object of stares just as I am staring at you right now in this dark room.  My head is creased with pain; it pounds in the blackness and the candlelight is fading.  The breeze is even cooler now. It will rain soon and the sound will rouse you and you will see me sitting here, calm, in control, as immovable as a piece of furniture; even if you would abruptly wake up and see me silently gazing at you, you'd be frightened; you wouldn't really know immediately who I was.  You wouldn't realize that it was your brother waiting for the rain to begin, soaking the drapes leaping in their fury, twisting, hiding, submitting, surrendering to the bleak clear sound of an open sky...a brother who dreams of you sending a key and a note and a picture of a child.  I envision you adrift in dreams filled with scenes of childhood, years spent hiding behind books, remembering your brother who discovered that his soul was dead to love.  In the theater where I'd sit, that great cold arena, that temple to loneliness, I would wait for the images to surround me; I was already all too accustomed to everyone's pathetic stares, my mind reaching out to you for an answer when I know there are no answers.  I fumble now for the key but there is no key.  I search through the wallet, but find it empty...even my initials, three letters cut in leather, are gone, worn away as if they had never been there at all.  I am now without a name.  There has been no candle in the room; no eyes following me up the street. Outside it is dark, but there is no threat of a storm.  Hours ago I found you in this bed, in this room, with the windows shut tight and your dress disheveled.  Your hand was soaking in that rich blood you share with me, your abdomen not moving, your face strangely immobile.  I observed you as if you were a photograph, frozen, without movement, captured in a moment without past or future.  What is it now?  Who is dead?  Is there no answer?  Just you there, leaving me here in this empty house, with an unsigned note that makes no sense, just me peering at the bed and lifting my eyes and struggling to see you this one last time.  Tears blinding, I cringe, stumble, sob, kiss the cold stone floor, and rise to watch you resting there so pale, so terribly pale, and still, so very still, against the stark white sheet.

Vernon Waring has been a newspaper reporter, feature editor, and public relations account executive. He is currently employed in the quality control department of a Philadelphia printing company. His poetry has appeared in The Writer, The Iconoclast, the Alabama School of Fine Arts Poetry Quarterly, the Midwestern University Quarterly, New Dimensions, Anthology, the South Street Star, MAYA, and the Stylus. His work has also been featured on NPR-sponsored Prairie Home Companion web site. His light verse has been published in the Saturday Evening Post and the Philadelphia Daily News.

Email: Vernon Waring

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