Baby Huey and Mama Huey.
that’s what my sister Annette called us
back when we were kids
in the Sixties,
laughing,
always laughing.
You have to be old enough
to remember them—cartoon ducks.
I, small, thin, wagging finger,
Mama Huey.
Annette, larger than Mama,
plump (fat),
Baby Huey.
At supper, Dad:
“Annette, you eat too much.”
She, running away
from the table
in tears
to the bedroom
we shared,
breaking my heart.
“Dad, do you have to?” I ask.
I’m seven, going after her
to see if I can soothe,
make her laugh.
She and I—
a life of diets.
I, as a teen, turned
anorexic.
She, in her twenties, began
the way of
The Knife.
Decades followed of:
Fill this out.
Laser this away.
Cut this off.
Lift my chin.
Slit my throat.
Annette’s last
beautifying
youthifying
uplifting
surgery
killed
her.
And she never even got
to be the
“gorgeous”
melodramatic
corpse
for all to come and see, which
she used to laughingly brag about
with wide smile and a
flare of her surgically-slimmed upper arms.
“My luck!” she would have said.
Her ashes
arrived in my
mailbox months later,
in a small, black sachet—
all that’s left of my
laughing buddy,
my beautiful
Baby Huey.
Let's Write! Creative Writing Services -- Valerie Serrano, Editor, Book Coach 
I’ve always hesitated to comment on poetry. Baby Huey has moved me enough to bravely share my feelings. After, reading through several times, in one sitting. It didn’t move me like a gentle breeze or a strong wind. It swept me away like a tornado.
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Joann, reading your comment has me sitting here with tears threatening to spill over. Thank you for taking the time to let us in on your tornado.
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That was tragic and beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
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shinyobjectssite, Thank you. It was your poem The Girl With a Dream about masks, with the first line of, “The empties are all around us” that reminded me of my poem about my sister Annette. You are very astute in your observations of how looks are everything and substance is disappearing right in front of us. I hope people will listen to what you have to say. I’m putting a link to your poem here for anyone who would like to read it. https://shinyobjectssite.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/the-girl-with-a-dream-2/#more-357
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Thanks so much! I’m very glad that my poem inspired you to share your own. It makes me so happy to know that my writing can impact readers in a positive way.
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