At The Wing Place

At The Wing Place

We sat at the wing place with the good Parmesan bones
me – egg wash chicken fried decided on a course
my sister – hard boiled buxom badass that I break against
She’s got this persona, right
a cultivated, professional disdain
no one sneers like my sis
sees so clear like my sis
in a wrestling match nobody’s feared like my sis, right?
You laugh but one time I had to put my forehead down on her nose
I cracked a molar, so I wasn’t all that intimidated

Once negotiated my sister
is dark and dorky and damaged
like her sister at the wing place
is moral and flawed and cynical and loving and flawed
and how could I tell her
how could I tell her
could I tell her

“I would have made a great sister” I ventured at the wing place
Parmesan bones, a lemony, tang sauce air floated
we have had secrets between us, unsuccessful
except for this one, this so large, so large

She canted her head and looked at me with one eye
the wise eye, given up by Odin at the root of a winding tree
I am a year older
I am much more educated
I am childless and guileless before her stare
I am naked at the wing place sitting for her judgement

“Yeah,
you would have.”

I told them all on Fat Tuesday, 2020
She didn’t remember this story
won’t till I read this to her one night, drunk
on affection and love and sisterhood

Nonah Cagney Palmer