My Sister and I Have Learned to Share the Sun Above this Mountain

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Amanda Rachel Robins

which part haven’t i written: a version
of ‘97, you were it. i hid
inside the elderberry bush behind
our trailer, my mouth & hands stained purple
your voice reaching for me between the branches;
a version of ’03, my burned feet cold
on the linoleum a handful of
peanut butter saltines. you’re there at the
table drawing circles with your finger,
our cheeks pink & screaming. do i tell you
the clouds look like a fistful of teeth this
morning, all yellow & pink? we know what
the sky keeps from us, the muffled violence
of scattered light. another way to bruise.

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Amanda Rachel Robins is a teacher and writer from Missouri. Her fiction has appeared in The Forge Literary Magazine, Moon City Review, Potomac Review and others. Her poetry has been featured in The Moth, Another Chicago Magazine, Apple Valley Review, and others. She’s on BlueSky at @robinswrites.bsky.social.

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