she wolfs

by Sandra Kolankiewicz |

In my sister’s current job, she pours her love down the drain. She asks questions, is told

lies, smiles back. She regularly distributes to the unappreciative who just expect, kinder than I who think at least thank you is due. In foreign countries, she buys cans of tuna to feed the stray cats, though the women bang their pot lids at her. She waves to them, smiles even in her sleep, never learned to cook, lost her hair in menopause, uses a cane for mushroom hunting even when on wet days the tip sinks in with the weight of her limp till she’s bound to fall on the soft ground, lying in wet leaves and giggling like a girl. We had the same parents, but she favors neither, someone’s crazy aunt, the one that’s really adopted. Hand me a jar of that stuff you’re always eating, I say, which she does, right away. To me it tastes bad. She wolfs.

| Sandra Kolankiewicz is the author of Even the Cracks, Turning Inside Out, Lost in Transitions, and The Way You Will Go.