night my sister was born in 1959, so late

the weary family doctor scribbled down

her birth as the 29th and ever after we celebrated

the newcomer’s birthday for two days in a row.

My mother gave birth at home, in the bedroom

Erelene was conceived in, and I knew the surprise

of her was because daily I prayed for a sister

to join me and three teasing brothers. My family

didn’t own a television or telephone, innocence

served as my guardian angel, kissing was as wild

as love got. Stepping out on upstairs deck,

I push through thigh high snow to watch the Wolf Moon

rise above Catskill mountain beyond river valley, light

so fierce it howls, fragmented by bare branches windblown

and clouds galloping across plague sky like Appaloosas

I dreamed of riding during those years I whispered my sister

into being. Later we dreamed together of horses,

“part Indian” girls gleaming in fragments like this end

of January moon playing peek-a-boo with clouds tinted

violet like Erelene’s blue eyes first time I saw her

in the lamps’ soft shine, from our mother’s arms

smiling up at me, my brothers and father. Winter

of enchantment in which we would never grow old.