My Sister and I

My Sister and I

We were not good girl scouts. We did not sell
our cookies. Instead, we gave them away -
to long haired drummer boys in bands and hell-
bound men on low-slung bikes who'd let us stay
a day or two until their engine's cooled,
until the new ink tattoos crusted and
a worried mother dragged us home. She fooled
them all. She wanted us to cry; to bend;
to break; to fold like butter; crumb like cake;
surrender onto Mom; to never cling
to strangers but to her; to sleep and wake
on sheets still wet with Daddy's sweat and sing
through tears that she alone had made us shed.
Her daughters had to bleed as she'd been bled.