In Terms of Kinship

Sisters, brothers! Everywhere
You have people, someone calls

To unrelated others
In terms of fictive kinship.

Utah’s LDS faithful
Term themselves, only each other,

Sister, Brother. The hungry
Holding cardboard signs may ask

You for your help, Brother. Groups
Bound by some shared suffering

Or common experience
May recognize each other,

Sister, Brother. Formally,
Whole classes of the clergy

Have gone by Sister, Brother,
And sometimes Father, Mother.

Many places, it’s only
Polite to call all elders

Mother, Father, but only
If that understanding’s shared.

You know the bond means something,
Even when that bond’s made up.

Your foes aren’t sisters, brothers,
Except when they’re really yours,

Ineluctable sisters
And brothers, sharing mothers,

Not, in fact, merely others
Loosely called Sister, Brother.

We words mean something, never
Enough. You use us to draw

Each other close, but we can’t
Keep you family by ourselves.

No, oh sisters and brothers,
We terms are only bridges

Over the unbroken streams
Of blood, washed out when in flood.