Dwellers in the House of the Lord. Wesley McNair

      1 •

      Inside the box she sent is bubble wrap

      folded over and over around

      a thick envelope, awkwardly folded,

      and deeper down, wrapped

      in Christmas paper with my name

      on top in a blur of letters

      handwritten over and over,

      my younger sister Aimee’s late gift,

      sealed in an old plastic bag

      like a secret she wants only me

      to know: a silver charm bracelet,

      which in the winter light of my kitchen,

      dangles a palace, a running horse,

      a heart with a key, and a clock.

      Once, after returning from a long visit

      with our mother, Aimee, married

      with two daughters, hid under her bed,

      keeping herself a secret. Mike searched

      and called for hours before she called back

      at last and he found her, discovering also

      his unshakable, lifelong anger at the woman

      my sister had tried to put out of her mind.

      But Mike was her replacement

      for my mother.

      A mind has so much to keep track of:

      which secrets to share,

      which to guard from others,

      and now, who and where anyone

      is anymore. In Aimee’s letter—

      creased and re-creased from

      her underlining and afterthoughts

      in the margins—she asks me to mail

      her Christmas cards for my children,

      having forgotten their addresses

      and their names. They can’t hear

      my chattering, she writes,

       but can read of several things

      I wanted to write inside the card itself.

      The Lord loves you, she remembers

      on the back, where a single heart

      floats in a blank sky.

      2 •

      In the famous family photograph,

      Aimee sits on the couch beside Mike

      in his Navy uniform, holding his hand

      and looking up at him with the defenseless

      wonder she wore all though girlhood.

      Eight years old, she has just asked him