Sonnet After Learning My Older Sister’s Name

Kirsten Abel

One day in April my sister walked out

of the Wichita Mountains and into

my head. Her bright hair, her eyes the color

of water being sipped from a glacier.

She has our mother’s personality.

A sharp affection. Like someone leading

their beautiful life just so. When we met

we hugged for a long time. We drank coffee

and she ate a grilled cheese. We walked along

the Puget Sound in disbelief.

The revelation of my sister’s name

next to my name is not like two halves

of a river coming undammed. It’s more like

a lit-up hill and a lake, brimming.

---

Kirsten Abel is a writer from Steilacoom, Washington. She has an MFA from Columbia University and currently lives in Seattle. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the New Ohio Review, the Berkeley Poetry Review, FIELD, Bennington Review, and elsewhere.

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