I remember that night

we watched dirty curls of light

creep across our car lot,

the atmosphere crowding with

the shredded satin of stratus clouds.

I held my sister's hair in one hand,

luminescent and charged with moon glow,

and the stolen cigarette we were sharing

in the other. I wondered if I was beautiful

too, plated in silver as she was.

We slipped nicotine between our

lips, glossed over in rootbeer chapstick,

and felt we knew the world better.

My sister said she was full on these nights,

giggling together in the gleaming silence.

She receeded in cycles, tugging grains

of me away until she returned, thinner,

the secrets of boys and the burn of gin

sunk below her eyes, celestial in their

newfound mythologies.

her laughter had long dried away, leaving

only the slim crescent of a smile,

and the unbearable quiet of empty starlight.