The imperfect is the tense of fascination

for my sister

birthdays before weddings are days of relief
and certainty
and do impose
an old disc
on the heart's radio

our tenses remain
as an indefinite
and ongoing history

I remember I am assured
on the night before my marriage
and it was not my birthday

(or is it
calendar borne
(the womb of some day
and an outburst of condition

you are how old now
sister
you have lots to do
before the less painful victories
loose away

what distress the disinformed and
dis-spirited soul what
brash pedantry

birthdays before weddings
are numbered (sequence in memory
aligned as sculptures, say,
exhibiting an uneveness of artistic
quality

we take heart
in the verities of creation