Cherubs Are Allowed to Snort, Snore, and Sleep Drool

elastin takes over my sister's face while she sleeps,
her skin pulled taught and smooth.
there isn't one rogue pulse of blood
jetting across her dozing eyes.
awake
and that soft, unblemished skin
is still youthfully rubbery and resilient
but it becomes her war mask;
the opaquely fleshy guardian of what's brewing
behind her scanning eyes.
asleep
and her lips form a cherubic envelope,
parted to let air in to fill her lungs
and dry her tongue.
awake
and the corners turn up in honest grin,
chivalrous obligeance, uncertainty.
they move to make words that sound
too old to be coming from such a virginal face.
i watch her sleep, while she becomes
what she really is, while she reverts back to
the infant in the white bassinet,
the strange life that shares my blood and my thoughts,
the girl child who clutches a stuffed chimp in
her ambidextrous grip.