I’m trimming my sister’s hair
when Mother makes for the scissors.
“I’m the one,” she begins. Her words
sputter to a halt as I close the gaping blades.

She stands, dwarfed in the kitchen
she once ruled, and I see her as she was,
bending low over the children’s curls,
her movements precise and quick.

I am the scissors cutting her
from her old life now. Even as
she opens me to loss, I begin
to close her.