My sister and I
Share the same freckle on our right hand
Sound the same on the telephone and sometimes
Shy away from what we know is better for us
Perhaps we think we don’t deserve much
A little damaged by the family that raised us
Searching for the parallel lines that would take us to a brighter finish line
She was the first to catch a fish on that taut line
We spent our summers pulling up crab cages in the Pines
Learned our father’s favorite curse word, “Mother…”
She no longer touches tequila
I no longer have the effort for rage
Worn out and trying desperately
To hold on to happiness in an unhappy place
She is always persevering
The only one of us committed to the shipbuilding
I spend a lot of time forgetting
That I used to roll white bread balls in sugar because I read it in a book once
That I am just as much
From Ireland as Italy and famine isn’t always related to the stomach
We are tender-hearted sisters
Ragtag and hasty but innovative and brazen
Engineers of our own survival
I didn’t mean to abandon you in the lake
To the dark and waste
I used to think our futures were prearranged
I had no choice but eavesdropping on our parents; brittle walls and tiny halls
Pleasure and violence
Did you hear what I heard, see what I saw?
Behind closed doors or
That night in the living room—brawl on the couch
Did it strip you of something like it did to me?
I remember you coming into my bed when the dog seized,
How you didn’t want him to die
And I still don’t know how to comfort you, how to make the horrible truths
Less a chisel that cuts away at you
We mounted horses in the woods one day
We never felt so free…