For My Sister

"I forbid you to weep," he proclaims in a stentorian voice,
And I protest.
"You don't understand," I tell him,
and I see your pale face peeping out from behind his shoulder.
You shake your head at me.
"No," you indicate, "You are the one who does not understand."

"I still love her, no matter what she did or didn't do."
My protests fall on deaf ears.

"But thinking of her brings you down, just like she always brought you down,
And I won't have it, and you are to keep going. You've been doing so well,
And I won't have it. You are my wife."
His voice is stone cold.

"You don't understand," I say again,
and again your pale face peeks out from behind his shoulder
and again you shake your head at me.
"No," you say. "You don't understand."

We argue and I tell him I don't want to talk about it and
I hang up the phone and
He calls me back twenty minutes later to tell me
He got me a treat and
He loves me and
I'm his wife and
I've been doing so well
No tears
No depression
So well
he loves me
he loves me
Please no tears for someone who doesn't deserve them
And he doesn't understand

And there you are again, shaking your head at me.
"You don't understand. He does. You do not."

So he came home from the store with warm dinner
and hugs and caresses
and chocolate
and I didn't talk about you because he doesn't understand
and you say it is I who do not understand
and then I went to sleep because I had a long painful day
and I slept and dreamed not of you but of everything else
but really of you

And I woke up and I understood.

You lied to everyone, I never quite knew why,
perhaps you never quite knew why.
You knew I'd forgive you anything.
You knew she would forgive you anything.
You knew they would forgive you anything.
But you knew he would be sternly just, not merciful.
I don't know if you lied to him.
I don't know if you told him the truth.
I don't have to know.
I do know that what you told him was so different
from anything you told to anyone else.
You let him be your judge jury

So in a sense you are right that I did not understand
But in a sense you are wrong because
He does not understand

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

And you were almost wrong not quite but almost
thinking that I would forgive anything
Because you hurt me so deeply
And it took me so long to forgive
That I didn't get to tell you one more time
That I love you
And now I can't forgive myself for that

And I look at the moment of you and your daughter
frozen in time
sitting on my desk
I watch you forever kissing her freckled face
And I know that I was coming around
just before you died
And I'm mad at you for dying
Before I could tell you that I forgave you

And he's wrong.
You were wrong.
But you're not wrong now.
That pale face of yours that peered from behind his shoulder,
That was just a shadow of you. You're not that pale face anymore
because you are somewhere else now.

I see you bathed in light
glints of gold shimmering off your red hair
warmth and light and life in your eyes and your face
because now you know what you couldn't know before
and you couldn't see before
and you couldn't believe before

you are loved
you are loved
you are loved