A sister insists on taking her place

in my transcriptions of diaries
from 1963, -64, -65;

...insists with her bathtub out in Stenkulla,
and on the third floor down on Ringvägen
(after a presumed agreement with our runaway mother);
...insists with my weekly emergency baths
and all her temporary men
– too grown to be called “boyfriends” –
(Bengt-Ingvar, Arne, Robert, Sven-Erik, et al.),
and there, among them, like a foreign bird,
her little son with the former lawfully wedded gentleman,
who – after being caught masturbating
to a copy of the porn magazine Piff
down in the bomb shelter turned bicycle storage room
(lacking his wife's attention) –
was swiftly shown the door amidst the din of divorce,
whereupon young men soon gathered in the stairwell
like Penelope’s suitors during Odysseus' absence;
her little son, in the context,
mostly an undeserved obstacle to carefree revelry;
a five-year-old irritation
summoning the worst in her

Now a sister insists with her old age,
her 86 years,
contradicted by the swift command of her mind

Yes, she wears her illness like a cigarette
in a holder,
like lacquered fingernails
and ten painted toes at the ends of her old woman legs;
not without a lingering touch of style,
in my early ‘60s memory
hiding her hair in a teased bouffant,
perfected heavenward
with a leopard skin pillbox hat
a few years before Bob Dylan stepped in and took over

In her first contact since the 1980s
– a nearly literary SMS response
to my tentative FB advance –
(in turn inspired by her many appearances
in my ongoing transcription of my diaries
from 1963, -64, & -65)
she relates a rising reminiscence of me
from Christmas 1950,
when she, at 12½ years old,
was forced to take on the role of my little-mother.

The comment holds a strange charge,
for when I was 22 months old that Christmas,
my middle brother died of polio,
15 years old,
and I suppose the sister,
as the only feminine entity (besides Mother),
had to shoulder the responsibility of the smallest entity; me,
while Father, Mother, and the older brother
wrestled with the Devil in the inner room,
out on the farmstead in post-sharecropper countryside

But mostly, I remember the sister
in a constant bad feeling;
a crooked, empty, ruthless, cold sensation
that I especially recall
in her futile attempts
to mimic and imitate
the warmth and care
others could naturally show,
but which she had to study and try to copy.

It was frightening,
like a doll speaking in an exorcist film
(you didn’t want to be alone with her).

The sister was a lizard
from a foreign star system,
and the little one who was me knew it

I was afraid of her out in the raspberry field
a decade before Bob Dylan stepped in
and took over

---

Chat GPT gave me these suggestions on reading this poem!:

Here are a few interpretative angles for your poem that might help refine or expand its depth:

Temporal Juxtaposition

The poem beautifully contrasts the early 1960s' cultural landscape with the personal, often tumultuous family dynamics. Bob Dylan stepping in can be seen as a symbolic marker of transformation, both musically and socially. Perhaps leaning more into this cultural shift could heighten the impact of these moments.

Alienation and Disconnection

The sister is painted as a figure of estrangement—both from societal norms (e.g., her revolving partners) and from authentic emotional connections. Expanding on her "lizard" identity or the "foreign bird" metaphor could intensify the theme of alienation.

Inherited Trauma

The intergenerational struggles, especially the sister’s early assumption of maternal roles, suggest a lineage of emotional survival strategies. Highlighting the psychological weight of these inherited roles could deepen the emotional resonance of the poem.

Child’s Perspective vs. Adult Reflection

The interplay between the narrator’s childhood fear and the adult’s attempt to understand and reinterpret these memories creates tension. Amplifying this duality could make the sister more multidimensional—both monstrous and humanized.

Sociocultural Critique

The societal constraints and moral judgments of the time are hinted at but not fully explored (e.g., the scandalous men in the stairwell, the judgment of her lovers). Tying these personal anecdotes to broader cultural narratives might strengthen the setting.

Refrains and Symbols

"Before Bob Dylan stepped in and took over" is a refrain that punctuates the narrative with a sense of inevitability and change. Perhaps exploring Dylan’s symbolic resonance—freedom, rebellion, or artistic reinvention—could add layers to the poem.