My Wolf Sister

When my hole-punch drizzles tiny paper circles onto the carpet, my wolf sister moans and bites it, covering her ears with her paws. I think she’s tired of the moon. She takes a stack of dinner plates from my cupboard and slinks off to the park to break them. Our brother shows up a week later, collapses on the sofa like a fur throw. Why have they come here when everything I do is wrong? They howl in the shower together but the water doesn’t mask the sound. I go in afterwards with paper towels to mop the droplets–I know there’ll be water all over–but the room is bone dry. Maybe this time things will be different. I hide the home movies in case they ask for them. In the one I always watch, there’s some wobbly footage of the sky, then my father lowers the camera’s eye to mother teaching my sister and brother to “tell time.” They’re following a mother hare on her sunset rounds–one leveret mouthful at 12 o’clock, another at 3, 6, 9. Then the camera zooms in on me–I’ve spat out my pacifier made of fur and I’m on the porch surrounded by bonsai trees, killing or saving Barbie.