Maureen Kingston

Cane and Able

Before kidney disease swells her arms and legs. Before they discover I’m not a match.

a peanut

I sit with the others waiting to be seated in her section, marvel at my sister’s six-foot frame in motion, her apron sash twirling. She wends like a flywheel in a machine, steadying, guiding, skillfully resisting customer zags in the diner’s cramped space; three plates up one arm, two the other, she lands tableside every time.

for comparison

Hers is a language of the body I will never understand. Even after leg braces correct my birth defect, I remain a bit clumsy and out of sync. I overcompensate. Grow to be as chatty and clownish as my sister is quiet and nimble. Pratfall and Grace—the roles we play in the family sitcom. Our double act’s a raging success, too, until the wrong sister gets the vaudeville yank.

elephant footprint

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About the Author

Maureen Kingston’s poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, Gone Lawn, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Maudlin House, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Unbroken Journal, and Whiskey Island. A few of her poems and prose pieces have also been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart awards.