Poems about sisters

by Gwendolen Gross

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Rowing with Claudia

My sister sits in front

in a long wooden boat.

We fill the bow, seats one

and two. I watch her back

for ready, row--I hear it

in her gesture, each leaning

forward, each slide and

pull. This motion knows

her. We match, the

stretch, the height of

arms, her back is mine

in this rhythm. My

body remembers we were

best friends once, maybe

when we had bunk beds

in Georgia and matching

skirts our mother made

with gingham and a border

printed with tiny black

terriers; we looked for

mushrooms after rain; or

perhaps it was exactly when I

was born. In this boat our

rhythm is the same--the six

people in front of us disappear

and we pull against

the water as if we were

each an arm on

a single body.

Gwendolen Gross

from Bone Scattering, (c) 1998

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My Side of the Story

The stink that left the old burnt spoon

sticks to my skin. I'm drinking oolong

because my sister left yesterday.

Squirrels suck trees

spring is lazy

sisters each

watch their fingers,

find similarity.

We study each other for ease.

Making soup, we slice yams;

she brings salt; I boil chicken,

turmeric, pepper, parsley, and cumin,

and copy the crook of her hands.

We shove from shore, the rotted-board landing,

we follow our oxbows, eddies, meanders--

a kind of travel: collecting soil, wounds,

row houses with red doors, open-mouth planters,

pitted yards, books stained by gaze or fervent search,

the looking-glass of love where our stories bank.

You want to sit at my place, hold with my hand,

melt when I sleep, but watch, it's enough:

our histories diverged as much

as anyone who bothers to be born--

the same tree, perhaps, but we each

own our own unopened bud.

Gwendolen Gross

from Bone Scattering, (c) 1998

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Dear Sam, from California

Never forget to live in places

as strange as the underside

of an earwig.

Soon you'll stop closing your eyes

because the legs are so many

and snapping, like angry mouths.

Once the way it works

becomes miraculous,

you can thanks the insect

and put it back down.

This is how I feel about California,

the cacti like pickle trees,

the hummingbirds that arrest

themselves inches from my face

and ask me to be a flower.

Gwendolen Gross

from Bone Scattering, (c) 1998