Tessellate

No cracks. No distance between us.
We sagittate, elongate.
Mightier together, we are an arrowhead
of near-womanhood. Me, attuned to whispered
words and you, still believing in their good intent.
Though they hear only our childish voices,
and dismiss us in kind –
we are building barricades every day.

We tessellate. A finite number formed by your
eight years and my twelve. I waited for you
for four years now I will never let you out of my sight.
I do not go forth without my sister
though the small hand bell rings, plain,
a little more insistent each time
and impatient fingers tap oak panel.
They can wait though, for it is with you I am rooted.

Like the leaves of the calla, we succeed translucency,
veins like steel under dawn-warmed skin.
Together we are a monolith of shared blood.
Our flesh fused, we fit into a tight sequence
of resistance that is stronger than they know.
There is a starched thickness to me and you –
quick drawn, but shaded violet blue.
Watch them try to break our pattern of collateral kin.

Like trying to hammer concrete with silk.