SORORITY
By Tracy Mishkin
We slept in bunk beds. I was a dog
who growled and ran away,
she a bear who smacked hikers
with her hairy paw. Poke her,
she punched. No one survived her.
She was hot moss on a rock, spores
in moldy bread, a red box of sharps,
always full. I was fronting tough,
a falsie girl next to Miss America,
wine cooler to her whiskey, my fuss
and bluster her thunder. Ingrown toenail,
fully automatic, a real bitch baby sister
who had my number Day 1.
Tracy Mishkin is a call center employee for a major health insurance company and an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald's, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Reckless Writing 2013: The Continued Modernization of Poetry, Best of Flying Island 2014, The Quotable, and Little Patuxent Review.
© 2015