I.

Pry the stillborn sister’s grip from my

shoulders where her whispers are laid

like nightwind. When I say, I don’t want

to exist, what I mean is, I want to hunt

small prey with enough flesh for only

one, but even through the veil she

reaches and pulls the meat from my

mouth before I can swallow. Lift from

my neck her urge to live

moonfull for us both. I was born under

a torn sky that should have been hers.

Take the knuckleblade of my pinky

finger and peel my skin away. Let what

is left dissolve, 

not into stars, but into the space

between. She will take my place. 

II. 

Even through the veil, she finds ways to

soften the mammoth night her body

might have filled as her shadow catches

my weak step. She turtleshells me from

the guilty noose of the umbilical cord

our mother gave me. Whenever the

moon is full, I feel her in the rifts

between ribs. I place my hand on the

aspen scars in our backyard. Listen to

her whisper that she knows I too grew

barkhard in the ways I had to. I am a

city of broken streetlights. A sister

alone, beneath a torn sky, dreaming she

will fall through.  When I say, 

I don’t want to exist, what I mean is 

without her

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Taylor Franson-Thiel is a Pushcart nominated poet from Utah, now based in Fairfax, Virginia. She received her Master’s in creative writing from Utah State University and is pursuing an MFA at George Mason University. Along with writing, she enjoys lifting heavy weights and posting reviews to Goodreads like someone is actually reading them.