Melissa King: An interview with sisters

The younger’s fidgeting embarrassed the older,

the “good Armenian daughter” in her UCLA sweatshirt,

modest ponytail and disguised eyes.

The dirty orange chili fries were meant to distract us,

give the younger sister something to do

with her paint-flecked, swaying hands

which flung her emotions all across the sticky table

into the ice-cold, air conditioned atmosphere where

it twisted into an apricot thunderstorm

catching us up in it so I couldn’t breathe,

causing her sister to cry tiny tears and whisper

“I can say nothing.”

They were shifty, textured mirrors of one another,

energies moving in tandem,

and private broken windows

into different experiences of survivorship

that only they could look through,

sharing desire across the borders of Armenian-“ness,”

their way of protecting self and sister

from angry alcoholic rants,

sleeping in a cold car out of frustration,

or collapsing, a sudden wild breath

of memory, loneliness, a death in the family,

tortured at not remembering how to play chess,

too intimate to talk about

but so loud the thunder and lightening: “When

is it going to be enough?”

I can say nothing.

Copyright 2016, Melissa King