My Sister, Who Died Young, Takes Up the Task by Jon Pineda

My Sister, Who Died Young, Takes Up the Task

 

A basket of apples brown in our kitchen,

their warm scent is the scent of ripening,

 

and my sister, entering the room quietly,

takes a seat at the table, takes up the task

 

of peeling slowly away the blemished skins,

even half-rotten ones are salvaged carefully.

 

She makes sure to carve out the mealy flesh.

For this, I am grateful. I explain, this elegy

 

would love to save everything. She smiles at me,

and before long, the empty bowl she uses fills,

 

domed with thin slices she brushes into

the mouth of a steaming pot on the stove.

 

What can I do? I ask finally. Nothing,

she says, let me finish this one thing alone.