The Merella Papers

Note: this poem was written about a very personal moment in my life. I met my half-sister when I was living and working in Montréal as a grad student. I saw her photograph when I was a teenager, but it was many years before we met. And I wrote this as a way to understand my emotions and feelings about chance, love and how life can throw you curves you never expect.

-K.D.

*

I.

What kind of chance did it have?

My step uncle

in a dark-grey room

(actually with more blue than imagined),

and another bed and body

(kept well-covered),

passed you to me;

a young face

in my young hands.

*

II.

From a father

this picture;

gained as a history

of men and urges,

drifting ideas

running through our time.

You, at an event

in a loose dress

and hair done

to catch the

angles of the sun,

already at one with

his eyes and a life

that was beyond the fine

edge of the frame.

*

III.

It was my secret.

This was the thought

ahead of certain patterns

that brought out my mother’s words

and this inescapable idea:

Our lies were living in the same house.

*

IV.

My brother

(again, an adoption - in name only)

brought across

the first message.

And after a night of

labour attempted with language

trapped in young minds

in a cheap room,

I had her phone call.

*

V.

All my skills

were lost;

there was only the voice and face

that could not be seen

and moved

beyond recognition.

*

VI.

You, a sister from another mother

even felt like another father.

My final stop that night

(nicely enough): Union Station.

Meeting in the dark

should have kept us apart.

It was also the Easter week-end;

three days for our miracle.

The hugs were generous.

The cabbies and vendors approved.

You thanked me for that night;

your hair scratched my skin.

Chance played like a dance.

Our lives were understood and stilled.

*

Thank you for reading!

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