Sisters

by Erin Jones

In the cow pasture we grab the electric fence
to see who can hold on the longest. This is a test
to see who’ll be the son
he never had. This is always our contest—
who can carry the water buckets, who can shod
the gelding without getting kicked.
I get points for smelling like turpentine,
but she sucks a cigarette
down to the filter each night.
My boobs are bigger,
my body in the shape of a wife. I’m losing
big time now. There are no boundaries.
In a dream I cut off my hair. The grass erases me.

Erin Jones is a third-year poet at the University of Florida. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, Parcel, Subtropics, Boxcar Poetry Review, and elsewhere.