It’s the terror of knowing What this world is about...
                                   —David Bowie / Queen, “Under Pressure”

My sister Stephanie had this shouty, alcohol-infused self
that got more unreasonable with the addition of marijuana.
I am too near her death, even after so long, to see her banish
Reason with the wave of a hand threaded with unlived futures.

She might as well have been a changeling, given her feelings
about anecdotes Mother risked about her, Steph’s, conception.
Our mother said she was storm-conceived. The Fruit of Anger.
Meaning she was congenitally pissed-off and stayed that way.

Some would call it outrageous, working on this memorial
for 10 years—like what in the sentient-hell are you doing?
Do you need to hear I couldn’t see something I looked at
until one day, and after working on something else, after

looking away from the bright flash of her, there it was?
Because that’s how it is, trying to see anyone you love.