the thinness of her salmon arms
slipping through the white sheets
knotted
like a noose
or a cherry stem tied by her tongue
she was balled up fury
and clenched fists
with a body who never quite listened to her directions
her mind had a mind of its
own
and she tasted purple and veiny
and smallit
was selfish of me to pick her up like cotton
from the redwood trees outback
my sister
plucked too early from
a water broken when I pulled at my motherI’m
always touching things i’m not supposed to
like my grandfather’s blue cattle
or the black sinew of her hair
which I pick at
to find her cherry pit center
my sister who is a thousand problems
and still deliberating her first words ten years
in last place
if she was like me I think she would be
over competitive
this kills her more than the white and purple pills
my mother wraps in cherry flavored
cough syrup
to numb her quiet
thunderstorms.