Weekends, my sister snuck bites

from the bar of butter

in our father’s fridge.

Floating in the absence

of our mother’s eye,

she was given time to crave

those hard, sweet sticks—

a relief from our mother’s

mushy tubs of margarine.

I imagine my father caught her

one moonless night

when they both couldn’t sleep,

those hazy moments

of synchronized desire,

the two of them barefoot

on kitchen’s cold linoleum,

our father naked

without glasses.

What did he think of her,

shaky under the spotlight

of the open fridge door,

back to him, devouring?

Wendy Wisner (NY)  is the author of Epicenter (CustomWords Press, 2004). Recent poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, Crab Creek Review, Pebble Lake Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the 2003 Amy Award and an Academy of American Poets Prize. She teaches at Hunter College.