Marjorie Lotfi Gill

Issue 15 • Spring 2015

                                                            for Marina

 

When her sister moved across the border

there was no border, not even a line

like the one they'd drawn in chalk

down the centre of their bedroom,

dividing walls and window, the light

parsed out between them

like a parent’s love. Only the door,

 

its point of entry and exit, was shared.

And when their own children were born

they passed through glowing checkpoints,

Sundays, not thinking of them

as lines, or points on a map,

but as traffic signals or a low bridge

that never shut, even in high wind.

 

Now, in the still of ceasefire, she finds

there’s no suspension left;

she drives to the edge of no man’s land,

flings one arm over to the other side,

like she did as a girl, just before sleep,

willing her sister to wake,

to clasp her hand and hold it.