A smudge and gift of tobacco tie  
Given to me on the urban forest’s edge
Alive with spirits dancing with soles’
Muted drumbeat as the rhythm in their song

Lost sisters
Without their shoes

Lost sisters
Leave their markings

Velvet footprints
Next to Big Bear’s

Scarlet on  
Big Bear’s Path

Remembered Sisters
Dance with us again

Daughter
Mother
Sister
Aunt
Grandmother
Lover
Best friend
Cousin
Classmate
Neighbor
~
NM

I met someone a long time ago
There was an elegant air around her
She looked around at
The filth surrounding us
Almost like she was a queen
Looking at a problem
She didn’t know how to fix

I knew immediately we had to speak

Suddenly, unpredictably,
She was living in my home
Sleeping in my bed
Sharing my secrets and
Divulging her own
Her things were all around me
In this tiny, little room
With one green wall
And all of her things
They covered my things
So I began to wish there was  
Distance between us

And then there was

My room felt empty
My bed felt cool
And something felt
Terribly wrong

We met again, unpredictably
In the same state
That wasn’t our own
I knew her instantly
She looked around
Like she was a queen
Looking at a problem
She didn’t want to fix
She seemed more jaded now
The way we’d both become
Traveling in the chasm
Of all that distance

We drank martinis
In the unfamiliar way we
Used to do
Jovially discussing how we’d both
Lost that hopeful glow
Her skin was still so
Dewy
Soft, and young, and fresh
But she was heavy
Heavier than I’d ever seen her
Heavy in a way we can’t
Quantify with a scale
She watched me with
A careful affection
Proud but weary
And I doted on her
With the same admiration
She loved to overlook

We parted ways again

Now she’s angry
I dared to claim
She was worth more
Because of loyalty
She responds
To my overtures
Until we have the chance
To meet again
Silence
My heart begins to ache
As my fears
Become true
The one-sided affair
Takes its next victim

Transition 8 silent months

To glamorous shoots
You have to pay
To see
I think back to the
First time we ever met
And wonder how
Two people can look the same
But be so different
I see the queen forget
She wears her crown
And assert that she
Never claimed the throne
At all

I know who you are
But

I don’t know how this story ends

My mothers tell me
not with pearls in pretty velvet boxes
or words in leather-bound books
proclaimed,
but in buried memory and coiled threads
stitched together over generations—
who i am

head down pattern
repeated, deaf to its echo
ocean blue over prairie wheat over
thick mud brown turns murky
winding spinning battening
fabric woven—

a kind of fate

destined, we are women without men—
all to our children, knotted hands uncomplaining, holding
deepest love so deep it holds too tightly
standing boldly outside
the measure

obedient, we are women armed—
sharp eyed ironclad we stubbornly
manage life
mitigating disaster, securing the fray
keeping watch

doomed, we are women hard-boiled—
knowing loss, we look neither left nor right
reaching only to gods
and goddesses for friendship,
lonesome

until one day empty
and by the grace of god, I pause—
turn my eyes
and see my sisters too

Pretty
Little girls
Run home
Into my arms

Crying
About
The man
They met tonight

He
Was always
A monster
Just hidden inside

They
Had bled
Blue and Red
Having Known him

If
I could
I would
**** for them

I
Would take
It all
For those girls

My
Sweet, funny
Precious friends
Deserved much more

But
All I
Can do
Is be here

Listen
To how
They weep
And feel disgust

Their
Bodies no
Longer theirs
But now spectacles

"If
It really
Happened" someone
Mocks them cruelly

"It's
No big
Deal" another
Sneers so violently

It
Happened
Whether they think
So or not

And
I am
Here for you
My dear sisters

A father shapes and molds his daughter.
A husband ought polish his wife.
But, only when a woman realizes her worth and value
will she shine beautifully.

"You have her smile"
"you look the same
but you're so different"

Hollow me out
Scoop me into
A shell of my sister

sliding into shoes
I am both too small
and too quiet to fill

Meek mouse playing house
In the home
Of a lion

Always a reflection
Never the real thing
Always just a copy

A two dimensional figure
Of a figure that I
Can never become

We are so different
Contrasting opposites
Divergent

As in everything
That she ever was
Is unobtainable to me

Steadfast lighthouse
And I am the shadow
The sun casts behind it

So when I stare
Into that mirror
All I've ever seen

Was a reflection
Of a reflection

Looking back at me