"when The Dead Are Done

At Fourteen, My Sister Sailed Away From Me Into A Place I’d Never Been. In The Walls Of My Sex There Was Horror And Blood, In The Walls Of Hers There Were Windows.

There’s No Condition One Adjusts To So Quickly As A State Of War.

Sometimes Holly Seemed Like She Wasn't Paying Attention, And Other Times She Was Gone When I Went Looking For Her. That Was When She Went To A Part Of Heaven We Didn't Share. I Missed Her Then, But It Was And Odd Sort Of Missing Because By Then I Knew The Meaning Of Forever. I Could Not Have What I Wanted Most: Mr. Harvey Dead And Me Living. Heaven Wasn't Perfect. But I Came To Believe That If I Watched Closely, And Desired, I Might Change The Lives Of Those I Loved On Earth.

And There She Was, Alone And Walking Out In The Cornfield While Everyone Else I Cared For Sat Together In One Room. She Would Always Feel Me And Think Of Me. I Could See That, But There Was No Longer Anything I Could Do. Ruth Had Been A Girl Haunted And Now She Would Be A Woman Haunted. First By Accident And Now By Choice. All Of It, The Story Of My Life And Death, Was Hers If She Chose Tot Ell It, Even To One Person At A Time.

I Loved The Way The Burned-out Flashcubes Of The Kodak Instamatic Marked A Moment That Had Passed, One That Would Now Be Gone Forever Except For A Picture.