family tree

sister can’t rhyme
the way brother does
so mother makes him write
all her poems for school assignments.

one of them gets published
and sister gets attention
brother always wanted.
she decides to publish more:

all the poems he wrote
become sister’s poems.
brother dreads the day
he will be asked to write more.

of course she asks him to write more,
and he does not rebel because
it’s a way in and he prays
that the revealed deception may someday make him famous.

one day sister
writes a poem of her own. liberation
at hand, brother mails off some of his own
under his own name.

he is rejected
as derivative.
she is praised
for her maturing style.

but he does not drink
his way into cliche.
and she does not grow
irony inside.

instead sister keeps writing and
bursts into heat and light.
brother keeps writing, grows more original,
is hailed as a late bloomer.

together they marvel
at the way mother beams.
together they ponder healthy leaves
growing from roots tangled in mold.