‘Sister’ by Kelly Creighton

Sister has never grown except for upward
and not inward. She is still as she was
on the verge of the school field, eating fish and chips
with mother – her classmates blown off, again.

Sister has white hair to show the age she feels
in what is mirrored around, and inside her.
White light birth: white light death.
Brittle string girlhood morning-stretched.

She is a sometime-sister, a daughter first;
somehow some call her their mother. She is
widowed of love; womb-less of expectation.
Sister is the designated sometime-driver.

Pliable as Plasticine, this woman-child, is a grown girl
in her new uniform, gathering helpers like tokens for the fair.
Making her job, of sister, all the more sisterly.
She returns late to that creaking door

where comers and goers, switch to don’t-returners.
Pulled-along-toy helpers play bedside-visitor;
bringing bottles of wine after her money-saver
procedures; to fill my sister with iron,

strength and colour; to dye the white of her
with sips of blood-red bitty-plasma vino.
People put up with children until they grow;
this is what she is afraid of. Too quickly,

life has tipped out everything but sound.
Sickness is so appetising, its slices give her peace.
Sister wears pyjamas when she drives;
she wants to fall asleep at the wheel.

From issue #1: autumn/winter 2015

About the Author
Kelly Creighton’s debut short story collection Bank Holiday Hurricane is published by Doire Press. Her novel The Bones of It (Liberties Press) was published in 2015. Kelly is the founding editor of The Incubator literary journal. She facilitates creative writing workshops and community arts projects.