When I was little
my sister
was little, too.

She and I got our hair done
at the same place,
at Mrs. Park’s
whose daughter
was still going to hair school.
She gave us perms.

We looked like
electrified Q-tips.

My sister
had soy milk skin
everywhere--
her legs,
her face,
all except her hands.

They were brown
and bitten at the nails.
You could always see
the shiny, pink flesh
of her fingertips.

We used to
sleep together in one bed
when we were little
and she would make me laugh,
imitating me,

the way I laughed like a Giant Man
at age seven.

My giggles were explosive,
50 wing-clipped bees
stingers intact, freed from
a golden-capped
mason jar.

Once, way past bed time,
she made me laugh so hard
I could hardly breathe.
Seven-year-olds can’t contain
Giant Man laughter.

My mother and father,
disobeyed, disrespected,
grabbed us out of bed
still in our nightgowns.

She went first
her milky legs flailing like drowning arms
down the brown, carpeted hall.
They dragged us by our Q-tip heads
to the living room
where the loud, blaring TV
swallowed whole
the cries.

I begged then
and rubbed my hands repeating
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

But my stupid, Q-tip head sister
said nothing.

She got taken into the bedroom.

There were
screams in pillows
and her Q-tip head went into walls.

And something else must have been happening in there,
like a pack of wolves tearing into
the weakest one
or a twisting off of a canary’s head.

That night
reunited,
She said,
nothing.

I felt her face
swollen, hot and sweaty
her eyes wet, puffy
sealed shut.

A single plump grape
slit open.

I pressed my lips into her
pulsing ear.
It smelled like rusted tea kettles.
I felt her Q-tip head for bumps

Counted them
whispering
"Hana, deul, set"
till she laughed
very quietly.