My little sister didn’t get the point
of a dollhouse no one played with,
the dream home that kept me alone in my room:
crisp corners and tiny doors,
Victorian blue and beautiful,
three short stories high
and mine all mine to design.

My little sister longed for the days when we played house
in the cold concrete basement of cousin Jackie,
who interrupted the action because
who kept interrupting the
who stopped the game again to say,
“Now pretend like you say—”

My little sister missed the primordial days of her toddlerhood
when we played with her small plastic house
in our shared room, when she wouldn’t play the way
I told her to—and I was older.
Like a bitter housewife, I thirsted for control,
so instinct taught me to lunge for the throat
and to squeeze, to clamp, to strangle
with all the self-centeredness I would one day repress
into dainty miniature curtains she wasn’t allowed to touch.