Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Alan Shapiro’s "Sisters" is an intimate and restrained meditation on grief, specifically the painful awareness of witnessing a loved one’s passing. The poem addresses the emotional paradox of wanting to hold onto someone while simultaneously recognizing that true love requires letting go. The focus on sisterly love creates an added layer of tenderness, emphasizing the unique connection between siblings, especially in moments of profound transition.

The opening lines capture the helplessness inherent in loss: "Now as helpless either to imagine the last edge of awareness / or stop trying to." This statement acknowledges the human compulsion to speculate about the final moments of consciousness, even as we recognize that such an understanding is beyond our reach. The phrase "last edge of awareness" suggests a liminal space, the moment where life slips into death, and the ambiguity of whether the dying person is still aware, still present in some way. The syntax, with its open-ended phrasing and lack of a firm conclusion, mimics the unresolved nature of grief itself.

The poem shifts to the direct experience of the grieving sister: "as sister love calls you back and back to the unbridgeable / moment between her / and her no longer who she was." The repetition of "back and back" reflects the way grief keeps pulling the mourner into the past, replaying the final moments over and over, trying to grasp something that can no longer be held. The phrase "the unbridgeable moment" articulates one of death’s cruelest truths—that there is an irreparable divide between the living and the dead, between presence and absence. The past self of the lost sister—"her no longer who she was"—is both there and gone, existing only in memory but no longer in time.

The poem then moves into a quiet, almost prayer-like wish: "whatever it was she felt, / or knew, or saw, / may it be possible for you now at least to think of her free / of anything / that might still hold her to what she has to leave." This is an appeal to release, not just for the sister who has died but for the grieving one who remains. The syntax mirrors the difficulty of truly letting go, stretching across multiple lines, hesitating before reaching a resolution. The plea—"may it be possible for you now at least to think of her free"—acknowledges how difficult it is to separate love from the desire to keep someone tethered to life. Grief, the poem suggests, can unintentionally weigh down the departed, keeping them bound to suffering through the sorrow of those left behind.

The poem’s final wish is that the sister might be "surprised for once by ease, by being thoroughly relieved, as when a muscle clenched / for so long / makes it difficult to recognize the pain as pain— / until it?s gone." The physical metaphor of a clenched muscle, held in tension for so long that it forgets it is in pain, is a stunning articulation of both suffering and its release. It suggests that life itself, especially in prolonged illness or struggle, becomes a kind of unconscious clenching, a habitual resistance to pain. The idea that the sister, in death, might be "surprised" by relief speaks to the hope that beyond suffering there is a kind of peace that could not have been imagined in life.

"Sisters" is a poem of quiet grace, resisting sentimental closure but offering the possibility of peace—not just for the one who has died, but for the one left behind. Shapiro captures the complexity of grief, the way love pulls the mourner backward even as it urges them to let go. The poem’s restrained, fluid syntax mimics the way sorrow lingers, loops, and slowly unwinds. In the end, the poem does not offer certainty, only a hope that the sister’s release, however unimaginable now, might be as simple and profound as a tension finally eased, a pain forgotten the moment it disappears.

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