For my sister

Obviously
we share our father's
weight
and gravitas

and our mother's
undisclosed malady

in the brother
the mother's
invisibility materialised

in the sister
the father's
frame became imperceptible

as plain as our parent's jaws
our mother's that clicked
and our father's
whose rare smile
due to his face
always looked manic

he avoided smiling
because of the
tragedy of this mandible
structure from birth

a smile that
no matter how hard
he tried and how well
how healthy he felt
and was
would with
no chance but
determined to be
seen as strange

where that smile
was originally compromised
by the unfortunate
structure of his jaw
in the eyes
of ungenerous others.

It was all down the hatch
from then
locked, clicked
like the instruction
to car seat belts
cat scars and scanners.