NaPoWriMo

Ran my mouth and ended up doing this writing challenge for National Poetry Month with one of my writer role models. It's like when you're a kid and you really want to sit at the grown up table for Thanksgiving and then you get there and everything everyone is talking about is beyond you because you're a kid and you're seven and you don't know why everyone looks so unhappy--not to say Christy is unhappy. Actually, she's probably way more upbeat than I am. And more talented.

So I have begun another month of trying to produce something creative on a daily basis but this time it is poetry--something I find way harder to do well--so I'm expecting way more misfires. I invite you all to join me.

4/4

She’s not his real sister

but on bored nights, they pass for twins;

Soft handed, callous kids

whose only steadfast commitment is malice

rooted in love or solidarity

And the love they say they share isn’t

nearly as thick as blood--

metaphorical or otherwise--

because he beats the cock’s crow

by hours when

he’s the first to admit

she’s not his real sister

Just family who doesn’t mind him

starting his dying early--

even joins him when the weather’s right

or threatens to slice him into high gear.

She’s mostly joking, he can see it

in the grin behind her sneer

and these are the times when

she is closest to

being his real sister.