She teases and torments me; plays with me and protects; chases me away and calls me back.
We share a room, toys and clothes, sickness and secrets. We fight, yell and scream, scratch and pinch. I bite her once. The taste of brown soap still remembered. When she’s away at camp I’m lonely.
She explains important matters. The “curse,“ an aunt’s growing stomach, how boys are different from girls, why a neighbor divorced her husband.
sticky night
whispering
after lights out
Bottle Rockets, August 2008
