Spring 2015, Volume 18

Poetry by Kathleen Diane Nolan

Sisters

Remember the lilacs
and their purple and the dancing stars
of forsythia, the wild strawberries
slipping through our cupped hands
into the grass, our made-up stories
and the willow tree and the swing,
bare legs pumping and pumping,
the grownups inside with their slammed doors
and whiskey sours, words crashing
through screens, running through the woods
to the reservoir’s edge to sit on the rocks
and watch the big kids swim
and Nancy Reynolds came over
in her cut-offs and bikini top
and kissed each of us on the lips,
lingering a moment, her cigarette breath
a cloud in our mouths, coming home
to play under the big bush
on the front lawn and the leaves
were money and the baby was sleeping
and we made our own house
out of quiet and stirred
the soup with twigs, and late at night
finally buttoned into our beds,
we couldn’t fall asleep
and talking was forbidden,
so we held hands across the air
and sang songs in our heads,
buttercups tucked under our pillows,
the yellow blooms we pulled from the grass
and held under each other’s chins
just to see the light.

 

 

 


BIO:
Kathleen Diane Nolan’s work has appeared in
Rattle and is forthcoming in Dunes Review. Kathleen was a semi-finalist for the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize. She is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Pacific University and lives in New York City.