Poems for and About Sisters by Top Critiquers

I’m in first grade and the bus drops me off at the bottom of our steep driveway. Jamie waits for me at the top. Papa's girlfriend forgot to leave the door unlocked when she left.

There is ice and snow on the ground, and it will be dark soon. She holds my hand to walk through a patch of woods to the neighbor’s house to use their phone to call Papa.


III

It’s brown powder with tap water sitting in a plastic cap. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess not that. I thought poison would look more alchemic, like a simmering cauldron of black ink.
...

It looks like
you're so hungover, Sis.
The guy you were found naked with is
still throwing up in the bathroom and you still have
no way of knowing who he is nor
how you got those tattoos
on your skin.