I’ve two poems in the current issue of Misfit Magazine. Here is the second:

My Sister’s Memoir

I bought the last copy
out of the display window
at the bookshop on the corner,
where your face had smiled at me
every time I passed
as if promising a conversation.

But our last conversation
was long ago—long
before the whole world
knew your name.
Such different paths
through the forest.

You had made a life,
rich and rewarding,
and I had made a muddle.
I sat on a bench off 5th
enjoying a rare April warmth
and began to read.

I wish I could tell you
what I expected—
to be the star of the early
chapters, I suppose. Called out
and praised—that’s the way it was—
wasn’t it?

But you lumped me
in with all the Toms, Dicks
and Harrys of our youth
in what was a very short chapter
without a single anecdote
of the hundreds of adventures

we shared.
If I look up
and crane my neck
I can just make out
your penthouse apartment.
Amazing views of both rivers

and all of NYC I have
to imagine, since I’ve never
been. I placed your book,
picture up, in a handy wire trash can,
and scratched around for subway fare
to take the N line back to Brooklyn.