Only Child

She thinks I don’t think she could
           make a good sister. That I don’t
trust her capacity for care. Poor girl.
           Night sweats wake me and the wind
shrieks along. The maddening wind sounds
           like a train. Here, where plains crash
against mountains, we inhabit a house that is shaken,
           sometimes nightly, by blasts. Pressure, purpose,
temperature, terrain: all conflicting. No. That’s a train
           hauling two miles of Dakota crude. Tanker
car after tanker car after tanker car. All full.
           I don’t want to think what would happen
if those cars uncoupled in our neighborhood.
           I’ve seen footage of derailed tankers. Fiery
explosions. Seeps of sticky, toxic oil. Not here yet.
           No. Let the train be the train. The wind
sounds like itself. Only wind. Caught between
           one of Earth’s bodies and another.
Together, I want to tell her, we built one
           beautiful soul. What I really mean is
I don’t trust us enough to make another.