My dad told me our neighborhood
was once a rock quarry.
The developers planted houses
and oaks in those stones, and evergreens
we used to snake our bodies
between when I made us play my favorite game
(orphans, pretending to be lost in the woods)
Now that I’m grown and actually lost,
I think of our big sisters: firstborn and blind, nothing to grasp but stones and schoolbooks.
A boyfriend, a bedroom wall with magazine cutouts taped on, all their hand-me-down dresses they cried in before we got to wear them.