She capers across the living room carpet,
hands tracing an intricate pattern in the air
as her feet crisscross on the floor.
I try to ignore her best I can,
my nose shoved stubbornly
in the centerfold of a magazine,
but I see her out of the corner of my eye,
twirling, dancing, flying.
My little sister,
almost an exact replica of me,
except that from every orifice of her body
seeps an incandescent glow.
She slips from my fingertips,
leaping lazy figure-eights
around and ’round and ’round.
She prances across the Milky Way
in long grand jetés,
toes pointed, legs straight,
arms out and up and open
in a wide, graceful U.
She swings on Saturn’s rings
as if crossing rusty monkey bars,
then soars from star to star
until leaping up in an arc
and descending down
toward Neptune,
in a cannonball to the sea.
She floats on her back
catching her breath slowly
and then rises to begin again.
She dances, dances, dances
back to me from across the galaxy
until she is inches from my hands.
I reach out to her and beg

“Take me with you.
Take me to the edge of the sky
where up is down
and falling is flying,
where time is timeless
and hide-and-seek
never ends.”

She smiles in pity and says nothing,
immersed in her dance,
twirling in and out of sight,
following a labyrinthine path only she can see,
dodging the couches and the coffee table.
I watch her hair move like a shadow,
dark as a vacant night
until the lamplight latches on
and illuminates the strands like shooting stars;
all the while, I sit back
wondering when the moment passed
that I lost my courage to dance.