Phone Home

A person wearing a hockey uniform and ice skates holds a hockey stick in a hunched position. They have short hair swept to the left.

Mom mails me a fat envelope of

family photos and

Christopher has gotten tall

a cool, asymmetrical haircut

over one eye.

I smile until I flip

to Cara.

I knew they

were busy building

a huge addition to

our hopeful house

but didn’t know Cara

had renovated into

a breathtakingly beautiful         and thin

blue-eyed goddess.

I don’t recognize the teen

posing playfully,

kicking one toe in the air.

wasn’t she supposed to have

an awkward phase

in there someplace?

It wasn’t enough for her to be

“the smart one,”

now she gets to be

“the pretty one” too?

Home suddenly feels distant

in a different way.

A drawing of a person on a wrinkled torn piece of paper. They sit with one knee propped up and one leg kicking up, their palms pressed on the ground behind them to hold themselves up. They have long dark hair that falls to their waist. They wear a plain long-sleeved top and shorts with a grid pattern. They smile with scrunched eyes.