I first heard my sister's name
when we buried Michael,
my only grandson. Standing
by his baby stone I
learned I'd lost a sister,
only sister, long ago,
her history stillborn
whispers in a mirror:
         Eleanor?
         Elinore.

At the rainy gravesite
I overheard my ailing
father tell my daughter
he too had lost a child
at birth, a little girl
stillborn in '36.
Yet he'd never told me,
not her sex, not her name:
         Elinore,
         Elinore.

The family Bible's blank.
No grave, no tombstone, no
baby picture album.
My father's forgotten
her birth date; my mother,
who would have remembered,
must have grieved in silence;
then I was only one:
         Elinore,
         Elinore.

Never mind, I'll make you
a mudpie birthday cake.
When the candles blow out
we'll play funeral, pick
lilies of the valley,
dress up our doll babies
crying in shoeboxes
buried in the back yard:
        Elinore,
        Elinore.