Cathedral

She is slight, my sister,
with a dancer’s waist and shoulders.
Her back is a moon beneath her sweater.
She and her friends embrace strong and quick,
then line up at the bar for class.

An observation window sits above the white dance room, their sanctuary.
The teacher speaks in one-two-three’s infused with French
and the pianist is invisible.
“As well as you can today,” she says.
“minute by minute.”

My sister commands the vessel of her body
with raw, red heels and a mind like a knife.
Spectators group at the window
floating above the studio, above the streets of Boston.
I think of tourists visiting mosques and cathedrals,
hoping to take away a portion of beauty for themselves.

There is beauty to every person.
Some, however,
are a light in the dark. They need no adornment.
The color and structure of their hair, teeth, skin
are all their own and are perfect. They are
temple and art and music
and they give
so you do not have to take.

Mini-memoir

When I was seven lightning struck the brick road in front of my house. Yellow caution tape surrounded the hole and my mom told me not to go near. When I did, the bricks gave way under my feet. My arms caught the ground, suspending my body above the dark sewer system. Stunned, I pulled myself out and slipped into our house through the side door. I jumped, fully clothed, into the shower in my dad's half bathroom to clean the mud off my body before anyone saw.My dad's father had our house built when it was time for him to raise a family. He worked for Florida Power, and I've been told my block is the last to keep electricity in the event of a natural disaster. My grandma told me that no one really lived in St. Petersburg until air conditioning was invented. This made me feel like I had a heat resilience super power since my family's house didn't have central heat and air until I was ten. On summer nights my three siblings and I, all born a year apart, would put our pillows in the freezer. We stayed up wearing billowy shirts, jumping around on the trampoline bed in my parents' room, which became an oasis when when they turned on the a.c. unit in their window. That cold, along with the braid my mother would pleat down my hair after a bath, are some of the most poignant sensations of my childhood. I felt a certain ownership of summer because I was born in June. My family didn't have a pool, but we made use of those owned by friends or waterfront hotels. At night I would fall asleep in my bed still wearing my bathing suit so I could wake up and go right back to a pool or Upham beach. Two places I have been since my first week of life are church and Upham beach. The warm gulf water was as close to me as my skin and when I moved to Baltimore for college I looked for a place to swim for months. I didn't find one, but the ocean never left my sleep; it is the only reoccurring dream my subconscious has held on to.