[a modified sestina]


My sister and I watched grandpa and grandma.
She has trained him into a service dog,
Sister has never been so marveled.
Grandma clears her throat and grandpa
clears her plate into the garbage.
My sister giggles. She has a thirst to learn.

My sister is ten when she rings in her first boyfriend.
Grandma crows that it’s lovely. I can see her mentally
checking off the list grandma made for her, thinks she's
taken the right step into womanhood. I can see it
in grandpa's trained face. He knows as I do that this
is only the beginning of her rise to the twisted Aphrodite.  

My sister is fifteen when she realizes she can puppet men
with the clink of her hips. She strolls with a boy lapping
at her heels, the next day she is with a new chump.
I ask of the boy, she snides that he is just a dip,
thing on the side, a mister, for when she is bored.
What god, do you think you've become? I spit.

She does not give me a second glance.
She nods his way and he dashes to the car door,
He doesn't dare let it brush against her arm.
She has mastered it, no need for lessons anymore.
She has achieved what grandma wouldn't dare touch.
I do not think she will stop here.

She is sixteen when I find her pooling
her eyes out on our father's front porch.
She spills They are gone.
The chump, the boyfriend, the dip, the mister,
all shelved her like a forgotten doll.
I bet they realize there is no love in puppetry.

I face her with no sympathy.
Can't expect men to tap dance on your string.
You can't bask in the burlesque of Aphrodite.
You wanted to be like grandma.
Grandma was noosed by the strings
she sowed onto grandpa before he left her.

No man will bow under a self-acclaimed god.
So, study this fall from Olympus.  
Understand, you are as human as we are.