Divided Paths

• Eleanor Cannon, Grade 11, Pulteney Grammar School
• Poetry
• 2007

1st in the 'Calling All Poets 2007' competition

Sifting recollections through the mind’s stranded sieve,
Bleak night, metal, screams, sirens; one survived, one slipped away,
Cars and beer - rights of passage to last rites,
Visions clawing like lumped clods obstructing verve,
Gulping air as earth plummeted and pattered against the coffin.
Numb, deaf to the ceremonial hum, prayers and sympathy,
Shattered psyche, splintered with shards of pain,
Noisy cycling thoughts of past, sharing, halving, fun and fooling,
Fantasy filters through maturing to familiar breath and embrace.
Reflexively reaching out, extending fingers but touching air,
Grievers averted gazes, but for accidental encounters when eyes flickered,
Then turned away in a painful instant to shun her matching visage,
Haunting thoughts of the cadaver gazing back,
When only a cold mirror could return her likeness.
Facing death and life with a broken spirit and stifled soul,
Inconceivable to begin again, without her twin.