Nancy Reddy

The villain shows himself

too soon and is all wrong for this play—

The year my sister turned into a crow

She grew

bird-boned and slender, a brittle core inside each inky feather

You’re the back door’s loose latch,

the spare key beneath the mat.

You loved that dumb boy, too. Before he died.

Didn’t you feel

made of paper? Didn’t you hide for years

And even in the quiet castle

she was never lonely, not with grandma’s smile

framed above the mantle, the carnivorous rumbling from the bookshelves.

smelled only

of the forsythia blossoms

In spring she was

a hedgerow of honeysuckle, a blooming earth

that no one else could touch.

Your ponytail was slick like horse hair.