Poetry Journal #7 - Space Between Our Fingers

When mother found my brother under the porch
that day, she said five words we'll
never forget: "I love you this much."
Smiling, she held her hand out,
space between her fingers
not more than two inches.
From the age my brother could walk,
we have wrestled. Bear cubs
on our Persian rug. I remember always
holding back, five years older
was way too strong. But now, he is bigger,
and when we fight, I cannot bruise him,
only print my nails on his arms,
scattered animal tracks left in snow.
And when I come home, tempered by
small experience, spitting at those who
cross my path, my brother stands at our
kitchen counter announcing, I love my
sister this much, space between his fingers
not more than two inches.

-Jessie Carson

This poem feels very grounded in the body to me. The poet seems to reinforce this with all the parts of the body that are described and the bodily actions: hand, fingers, wrestled, strong, bruise, nails, arms.

I have a hard time determining if this poem is intended to be depressive or uplifting. It caught my attention because my mother used to say the same thing to me as a child, but when she said "I love you this much" she would spread her arms as wide as they could go. So to read the same line in this poem and hear that there is only space between fingers seems somewhat sad to me, that the love is less or diminished.

I'm curious to know why the brother starts out the poem under the porch. This seems a place for hiding or protection, and so it makes me wonder what he needed to hide from. Perhaps it was from the poet, his sister? Had she beaten him at wrestling as a child, and he was upset or hurt? If so, then i believe the poem leaves us in a different and yet familiar place from where it started. The mother provided the comfort to the wounded child in the beginning, and at the end, the sister receives that protection or solace from her brother, whom she spent much of her childhood fighting with.