Hansel’s Sister
Late at night, paper
from a brother's party
litters the table.
If the mother were still
alive, she'd nag, or forbid.
The sister watches the street
sparkle in the light of three Santa Clauses
filtered through rain.
She writes her mother a letter,
like the shrink said:
Yellow birds, yellow apples,
and cracked eggs. Mother,
mother where are you?
My brother sleeps his goodbyes.
The lights are a string of beads
broken into night.
She opens the back door,
even though the trash was always his job.
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Carol Dorf’s work has been published in Runes, Five Fingers Review, Edgz, Caprice, New Verse News, Feminist Studies, The NeoVictorian, and elsewhere. She has taught in a variety of venues—as a California Poet in the Schools, at Lawrence Hall of Science, and at a large urban high school. She lives with two cats, one husband, and one child.
