LISA

by Lisa Beaulieu

The first thing she said to me as she swung her black cape off and onto the hook on the wall was “I found a dead raven when I was running yesterday, and took it home, and harvested the feathers.” Her name was my name and she was the mirror I never had looked into before. Of course she was much more, she was herself, Lisa, with the neighbor who stood on the trash cans to peer over the fence and watch in disbelief as Lisa plucked her road kill; Lisa, with the mentally disabled daughter whom she taught to worship the goddess and the grasses, to sing, to make elaborate beaded bracelets, and to ignore the taunts of her classmates; Lisa, with the strong legs who ran ten miles every morning; Lisa, with the ruby ring she wore always and only when she got her sacred menses. Lisa, who had blond hair and never shaved her legs, and stood by my mother’s casket, and handed me a tarot card – the Fool – taken from the holy deck she had preserved from her suicide sister’s belongings.

Lisa was the mirror, but not really, because a mirror is cold when you touch it, it reflects reality backwards and upside down. Lisa was never cold, always real, right-side-up and forward. A mirror is empty when you walk away – you can tell by looking from around a corner. Lisa was full of life and ideas and art, full of muscle and mind. Lisa was never empty. Sometimes she was quiet, but even then her beautiful long delicate fingers held rubies and raven’s feathers, held the hand of her growing daughter, held a hoe, held clay, held back all fear, held my heart, my heart, always held my heart.

Lisa took me to the movies when my mother went into intensive care. She bought me popcorn, and she gave me, just as the theater darkened, a coyote made from clay and her own longing. Hold the hand that made the coyote, hold the hand of your sister Lisa, and the hand so held will have the strength to hold the hand of the unconscious mother, the hand so held will open like a red camellia and hold the feet of the brain dead mother. The hand so held will be gentle and let go of whatever kept you from the bedside before. She put the coyote in my hand, she held my hand through the movie, she sent me with her blessing to the mother’s bedside, able to reach out anew.

Lisa had a trunk full of feathers. When you see a raven, I am there Lisa said when I loaded the car. Lisa knew I was her earthy practical mirror. Lisa said these things anyway. The mother buried, the mother in the grave, two Lisa’s in black and sunglasses. The mother left behind, rotting in the grave, but the spirit, two spirits, three spirits or more, all free; one floating high above the earth, one hoeing a new garden with her daughter, one driving a red car, fast, across a continent.