Summer afternoons we watched the dancers

after the soap operas. We watched Aunt Sally

lift an amber soda and flick her cigarette.

We critiqued nothing. The point was to adore.

The point was the beauty of the dancers, the color

of their tights, their bodies bent in song.

We watched Sally get ready for her nightshift,

the wand of mascara, the silver specks glinting

on her eyelids. When she left, we lay flat

on the carpet, the TV still echoing, the sun

weirdly bright. We had nowhere to go, nothing

to be. The eldest cousin was in charge.

I know now that this cousin was in pain so

dense it devoured her. Her sister was the baby.

We shared blood and genes and needs we

never said. Years after, the little sister was

killed, shot in the stomach by her boyfriend

in a parking lot. My mother called and said Emily

is shot. What do you mean, I said. Emily is shot,

Emily is shot, as if I was stupid and I was because

she had to repeat the words and repeating them

made her angry and I thought of how we watched

Emily’s mother get ready for the nightshift, Emily

in jelly sandals that showed her dark birthmark

shaped like a heart. The sandals were glittery

and pink; they hurt her feet. She trailed behind,

her sister in charge like a mother. Hurry up,

Em, hurry up, and the years between wandering

as a child and bleeding to death were blank.

Hurry up hurry up, while Em tried to please:

she was beauty, she was quiet, she was dead.

We learned to follow and shut up, but for what for what

Girl Lessons

Sunday in the West Bank