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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