SISTER POEM
As my sister and I drive through Providence
she says, That’s where your ENT doc was—up that street.
So often I forget to include my sister in my childhood poems
because I was so focused on my parents and illness (asthma).
But suddenly we are kids again in the backseat—
me with my inhaler and she with a picture book.
My mother is parking at Dr. Boyd’s office.
Then my sister’s in the children’s hospital during visiting hours.
I spent most of the fourth grade there. My sister
must’ve been bored those afternoons with me and my mom—
my dad still at work, no one to babysit her.
It’s the first time I realize how she resents me.
At the red light, she says You got the red Easter shoes
and I got the black. You got the pink polka dotted bathrobe
and I got the brown stripes. She said my mom often told her,
Let your sister have it. She has asthma.
Let your sister have it. You know she almost died, right?
She’s laughing because she’s a kind sister—
a mother and a grandmother now. Our parents
are gone. We are lucky to have each other
as we head towards Riffraff, the indie bookstore .
A friend who writes fiction told me it’s much easier
to write young characters as twins or triplets
as kids can weigh down a narrative. But if a novelist
develops siblings, she’s probably restricted
to these types—best friends, rivals, caretaker/protector,
or estranged. My sister and I are indeed best friends now,
but what about when we are back in grade school
getting our portraits taken at Sears? I keep losing my pose
so the photographer says Put your right foot on this penny.
And guess what? When we’re done, I get to keep
that penny too. I remember my sister crying.
Why didn’t I give her the coin? I was jealous
of my sister’s health. She could take dance lessons.
Her lungs filled easily with air. She straight hair
she could part in the middle like Susan Day. I was frizz
and fuzz and ill-fitting headbands. I’m so sorry little sister,
sister just a year younger. She tells me
back then I could get her to do whatever I told her to do.
I was her teacher. She was my pupil in a class of one.
I was her nurse. She lay on the couch and I took her pulse.
A PROSE VILLANELLE
If only you’d waited to fall after the pandemic was in full swing. But it was December of 2019 and the camera we’d installed couldn’t find you—we had it watching the living room where you slept in your chair. We had no idea what COVID would bring.
You landed on the cold tile in the bathroom, your face hitting the side of the sink. Blood pooled into your cheeks, gave you bruises and two black eyes. If only you’d waited to fall after the pandemic was in full swing.
The paramedics took you to the emergency room where you were promptly admitted. All the doctors agreed it was too dangerous for you to go back. Rehab and then the nursing home. We had no idea what COVID would bring.
I promised I’d visit you once a month—fly from FL to RI, my childhood home. But then everything shut down, including the nursing home. If only your body had waited for that bad fall after the pandemic was in full swing.
If we had known, I would have gone home to be with you. You and I could have been a pod—grocery deliveries, my job now remote. We had no idea what COVID would bring.
Instead you were stuck in your room, contagions all around you. Only a flip phone and Zoom. If only I’d have caught you before the pandemic was in full swing. We had no idea what COVID would bring.
Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (2021) and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.