Continued Poetry Oferings From MNP @ SB

I would like to apologize for any name mis-spellings! and to remind everyone we welcome not just poets, but fiction, prose, memoirists aka-- anybody who has something to say and to read!
Don't forget to bring at least one copy for Rachael. We plan to have a "grab bag" after each meeting where head chef Candi Ramer will draw a poem out of the hat. The winning poem entitles the writer to a 5 % discount on any item on the Sushi Blues Menu!!!!

My Sister

by Abby Meeks


She is mine
like a middle name, a bra size
and I tote her name around on my tongue
Emily
show-and-telling her to the world
the face that launched a thousand memories
that are mine, collected
like trolls and American Girl dolls.

Our Secret:
a fishtail down the hill on Dakin Rd. in January
a vodka-Gatorade at the swim meet
two fingers down the back of my throat
a missed flight to Prague
golden rhinestone twins that pierced our umbilical scars
mine now rusting in a pipe somewhere and hers
shut out and outgrown
by a filler of flesh.

We ask Santa for dollhouses
in matching flannel nightgowns and
in the room with the upright piano
where she takes lessons from the woman from the land of the Philippines
we awake to discover hers, yellow, mine, blue
the first Christmas she stops beleiving in
Daddy.

I'm sixteen, armed and dangerous with learner's permit
she's seventeen and wasted off Alabama Slamma
at Paul D's later
I watch her sleep and she awakes to puke
in the metal bowl I keep bedside
we play American Girl dolls
I hold back Kirsten hair with Samantha hands
combing through blonde strands
I will crave sober fingers years later
when it seems impossible to untangle
my Samantha brown hair.

Her boyfriends are
Jay-Jay the Jet Plane! whose locker is next to mine in
Blue Hall
Adam the Head Lifeguard who laughs at our
fingertoes
Dwight Schrute the future Congressman who hates when I call him Dwight
her boyfriends are Boyfriends while
my boyfirends are "boyfriends"

She still sleeps with the light on and dreams
I am eaten by a shark
she watches helpless, standing only two feet away but
hears the carnage through the earpiece of her
cell phone
they say it is impossible for one to die in one's own dreams

It is impossible for me to live
in hers.

This morning I drove to school and somewhere
between Lebanon and Lally Lane
I sat with her on the dock of the bay
wasting time.