I
Jack, eighteen
died on his motorbike
aneurism
the Ugly Sister
expert in camouflage
and ambuscade
after the funeral
Lenny in the corner
absent in his grief
chain-smoking with his beer
Joyce and the girls
on the veranda
with Chateau Cardboard
watching the earth-shadow
deepen into the velvet outback night
and timeless stars
it breaks the order of things
for parent to bury child
the order:
grandmother die
mother die
daughter die
II
another fifteen years:
Lenny’s “accident”
when Joyce rallied
she summoned the girls to plan
how to hold the hectares together
and divide them after she died
death sweeps the old away
to make room for the new
running the property single-handed
in the Big Dry
for pity taking the rifle
herself
to the gaunt and hopeless stock
it’s the order of things
droughts come and go
if you break first
you lose
III
she was ready, her bags packed
long before
protesting fiercely
ambulanced into the town’s “hospital”
where the girls gathered powerless
at the palliative bedside
only my enemies should suffer like this
praying for her release
as if to break the Big Dry
but the Ugly Sister
owes no favours
and kept her
dangling
© 2010
the Revd James M McPherson
Maryborough Qld
St Francis famously (and rightly) refered to Death as "Sister Death". Experience shows she can be an ugly sister sometimes, or welcome, or beautiful, which I have explored in several poems. This one dates from 2010.