I Summon Our Dead Sister to Our Dying Father’s Bedside by Gabby Gilliam

You enter the room
the mirror of our mother
chestnut curls and beryl eyes.

You perch on the edge of the bed
so carefully it doesn’t shift beneath
your weight—an impossible ghost
here to hold my hand
when I need comfort most.

I ask how you found us—our other sisters
settled on the opposite side of the bed
attention focused on our father
delirious and gasping between our worry
his skin purpling with the bruise of death.

You squeeze my hand
and say you followed
the furrow of our grief.