Me and me sister

Me and me sister liked to see em off.
She’d brave icy-cold as the penny dropped, tossed overboard with a mighty cheer, from sailing boats soon to be away.
‘Show yourself,’ she’d say to the sea, as the waves lapped across her toes.
She’d always find it too, even if it meant going in right past her knees, and sifting through mud and stones and worms and bones.
‘You’ll catch a death,’ I would say. Not my words, but those borrowed from Ma. I always had me coat, so I’d be all right. Death wouldn’t catch me, no way. I can run really fast too. Just in case.
She was cold-blooded. Her words, not mine.
And double-jointed. She’d do this thing with her arms that made me squirm. It won her loads of friends at school though. She used to laugh at me when I cried myself to sleep.
And run to tell Ma if I’d left a mark.
‘You big softy,’ she’d say, ‘and you bein a lad an all.’ That was me sister, not me Ma. Ma would just give me a cuddle, and tell me to ignore her, sticks and stones and all that. I wasn’t buying.
Me and me sister like to see em come in.
The load was always lighter, and the songs, for some reason quieter.
But one day soon, I know I’ll hear me Pa’s voice, singing like an angel, singing out to his boy.