I woke up
before the sun.
But I was not the first;
my brother saw to that.
Our clothes
in the closet stared at us.
In the distance a man
and women yelled.
Muffled by the door
we couldn’t tell who it was.
But it didn’t matter
because we knew.
I’m grown now
and married over twenty years.
Still I remember
those sleepless nights.
We would wake up
before the sun.
But we were not the first;
our parents saw to that.
