… with a backyard porch,
and a dog waiting at the front door.
Carefully I turned my ear, my tiny sister
spouting to me hopes of what would be.
A bright and fairy-tale future.
… and a big space where I could ride my bike indoors,
and a big pool with a big water slide.
And my Prince Charming bringing me flowers
every day, and double on my birthday.
A tender part of me, that was still a child,
wanted to believe all the things she said
would really come to be. How young she was,
and I was old!
Already she had given a name
to where her future home would be:
castle-like, of course; “One Haven Place”.
And it would have crenelated towers
(to sign the word, she used her fingers
to carve out the jagged pattern in the air),
and a green courtyard lush with grass,
with pretty trees that bloomed in May,
and a big, big bedroom with a big, big bed,
with posts reaching up ceiling-high,
lots of fluffy pillows, a comforter
woven through with thread of gold.
With a kitchen always open
to steal into, pilfer chocolates,
or cranberry scones, or whipped cream,
mountains of cookies, lakes of pudding.
And a big, big, great big ballroom
where all the women, in lovely dresses,
and the men in fancy tuxes
would dance the night so lightly away.
How young, I thought, she was,
as I sat and listened to all she wanted
to be real in her dream house, my sister,
in One Haven Place.
And how life, then, would in fact
be perfect.
I measure the distance between my sister
and my self not in years, but
in hopeful wishes made while young.
Vast her dreams are. Broad they reach.
Did I, too, have such dreams
when I was a younger version of myself?
To have the perfect house, and home,
husband, kitchen, ballroom,
and love – and dog, to boot?
Some version, I think, of those dreams
has been the purview and province
of everyone who has ever sought happiness.
I am older now.
My happiness is reality-tempered.
I’ve learned happiness through what is given,
and what is possible, likely.
I will hold ever the hope, that my Prince Charming,
my house with crenelated walls,
and the dog – to boot – is out there somewhere.
But what in this would could at all be better
than to see on my sister’s face
a smile that told me all she wished
would one day come indeed to light?
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