Undertow

Jean L. Kreiling

Word Count 140

Undertow 

            in memory of my older sister 

I’ve heard the stories, and the pictures show 

a laughing child, bright-eyed, hugged frequently— 

but she had dipped a toe into the salt 

and foam two years before I knew her name, 

and long before I could have understood 

the tides that siblings swim in, and how one  

can draw the other, or recede, how years 

adjust the undertow.  She waded in 

without me—for a while an only child— 

I wonder, was she really reconciled 

to my arrival?  Once I came, the din 

of sibling squabbling could get loud, and tears 

chased laughter; our shared story had begun. 

The vital ebb and flow of sisterhood  

would pull us in, then part us; we became 

close strangers sometimes—it was no one’s fault— 

but if she waded in a different sea, 

I think we always shared an undertow. 

 Jean is the prize-winning author of two poetry collections, Arts & Letters & Love (2018) and The Truth in Dissonance (2014), and an Associate Poetry Editor for Able Muse: A Review of Poetry, Prose & Art.