A sister is the hardest reader a verse can have. She holds the whole file — every card you have ever sent, every story you tell wrong, a version of your childhood that does not match yours — and she will read four lines twice and know exactly which one you meant. That is why the safe rhymes fail here faster than anywhere else. Sunshine, laughter, all the years ahead: any of those could go to anybody, and going to anybody is the one thing a sister’s card cannot do. What works is smaller — one object, one habit, one stretch of time the two of you were the only ones present for. The verses below are sorted by where you actually stand: short ones sized for the inside of a card, separate sets for an older and a younger sister, verses for the years you live a long drive apart, plain ones for a year that went badly, funny rhymes with something real underneath them, and longer poems written to be read out loud at a table.
Short verses that fit inside a card
We knew the same loose second stair
and how to miss it clean.
And nobody alive but you
still knows the house I mean.
Your mittens dried above the stove
alongside mine each night.
Two pairs, one hook, one winter long.
I think we turned out right.
I call you first. I always have,
before I’ve found the way
to say the thing I mean to say.
You wait. You always stay.
We’ve disagreed for half our lives
on how one summer went.
I’ve let your version stand each year.
Take it. It’s what I meant.
You left the porch light on for me
on every kind of night,
and never mentioned that you had.
Today I set it right.
There’s one hand I would know by touch
in any dark at all —
the one that steadied me at four
and steadies me this fall.
Take back the day. Take back the drive.
Take back the list of chores.
For one day let it all go past.
The whole of it is yours.
Birthday poems for an older sister
You were the one who checked the locks
when we were much too small
to know a door could matter.
Nobody asked at all.
You did it every single night.
Tonight I’ll take the hall.
You broke the ground for both of us —
each curfew, every no,
each argument I never had
because you’d had it. So:
the road was flat before I came.
You wore it down. I know.
You ran the house before you should,
because it fell to you.
The lunches and the bus and us —
the whole of it, right through.
Nobody said thank you back then.
I’m saying it. It’s due.
You drove us to the rink at six
through mornings black as tar.
You scraped the windshield, said no word,
and got us in the car.
You weren’t much older than we were.
That’s how good sisters are.
These days I’m the one checking in.
You hate it. Go ahead.
You spent a long time doing it
for me, and never said.
So take the call this year, and take
the whole day off instead.
You are the only one who holds
the whole of how it went —
the names, the street, the porch, the road,
the winters that we spent.
I’d lose it all without you. Keep
on telling what it meant.
Birthday poems for a younger sister
I had four years of being first.
I gave them up for you
with very little grace, they say,
and I believe it’s true.
I’d give the whole four up again.
That’s what I’ve come to do.
The things I showed you weren’t much use:
which board out back was loose,
which lie the two of us could hold,
which one had no excuse.
You worked the rest out on your own
and did it better. Truce.
You were the youngest and the one
who wouldn’t let it go.
You asked the questions no one would
in front of them. And so
the family calls you when it’s bad,
and you pick up. I know.
I carried you to school and back
the winter you were small,
and thought that made me somebody.
It didn’t. Not at all.
You’ve carried heavier since then
and never let it fall.
You left, and I said nothing much.
I helped you load the truck.
I drove the whole way back alone
and blamed it on the luck
of traffic and a heavy week.
It wasn’t. I was stuck.
You’re right more often than I am
and you were always so.
I spent a decade arguing
with things I ought to know.
I’ve stopped. Consider that the gift.
Now have the day. And go.
When the two of you live a long drive apart
Four hours of highway heading north
and one long stretch of pine
where nothing on the radio
comes through but static, fine —
I drive it twice a year at most.
The empty hour is when
I do the most of my thinking.
It’s mostly you. Again.
You’re two provinces from this door
and one long day of road.
I’ve done it in a single go
and carried the whole load
of that drive for a week. I’d do
it now. Just tell me when
and I’ll be in the car by noon
and at your door by ten.
There are three hours between us and
I’ve never got it right.
I call you in your afternoon
or halfway through your night.
But not this day. This one I’ve kept
for years without a slip.
Whatever else has come apart,
this one still keeps its grip.
I won’t be at the table, so
somebody read this out.
Prop it against the water jug.
Don’t make a thing about
the fact that I’m not there this year.
I’ll be there in the fall.
So save me nothing. Eat it all.
Have the whole of it. And call.
We send each other photographs
of weather. Nothing more.
Your snow, my rain, a parking lot,
a sunset off a shore.
It looks like nothing from outside.
It isn’t nothing, though.
It’s how I know the week was fine.
So — happy birthday. Snow?
The year you moved I told you go
and meant it, every word.
I did not sleep for weeks on end
and no one ever heard.
You’ve made a life out there. It’s good.
I’ve seen it. I’m not blind.
So happy birthday from back here,
where you are, still, in mind.
For a year that went badly
There’s no good way to word a card
for twelve months like the last.
So here’s the plain one, said the once:
you got through. It has passed.
Nobody helped enough. Not me.
I’ll do better this year.
So take the day and take the phone
and take me. I’m right here.
You spent the winter on the phone
with people who don’t care —
the office and the insurance
and one man never there.
You did it all yourself, and calm,
and never asked for hands.
So happy birthday. Ask this year.
That’s where the next one stands.
I’m not going to tell you that
it happened for a reason.
It didn’t. It was just a year
and it was just a season
that took more than it gave you back.
You’re still here. So am I.
So: happy birthday. Nothing more.
I’m not going to try.
The date came round the way it does,
regardless of the rest.
So we’ll do small this year — a cake,
a call, and nothing dressed
to look like celebrating it.
You needn’t feel a thing.
The day is yours. It’s still your day.
I’ll bring what I can bring.
You did the hardest year you’ve had
without a lot of noise.
You made the calls. You made the lists.
You kept your steady voice
with everybody but yourself.
I heard the other one
just once, and only for a bit.
So call me. I’m not done.
You’ve had a bad one. So have I,
and mine was less than yours.
I’m not going to make a speech.
I’d rather do the chores:
the drive, the calls, the freezer full,
the boring useful part.
So happy birthday. Rest a bit.
I’ve made a decent start.
Funny rhymes with something real underneath
You’ve had my winter coat two years.
I’ve asked. It always disappears
into a closet you don’t own.
Fine. Keep it. Call it all a loan
that came due and got written off.
Happy birthday. Wear it. Scoff.
You are, and always have been, late.
I’ve built a life around the wait:
a book, a coffee, and a chair
set up so I can see you there
arriving with a good excuse.
I’ve heard them all. I don’t refuse.
So happy birthday. Take the day.
Turn up whenever. I will stay.
There’s not one bad decision I
have made that you have not stood by
and watched, and filed, and kept on hand
for dinners where the whole thing’s planned
around one story. Fine. It’s yours.
So happy birthday. Tell it. Doors
are open. Everybody’s heard.
I’ve stopped objecting. Not a word.
You said no gifts. You say it yearly.
You have said it very clearly.
I’ve heard you every single time
and disregarded it. The crime
is minor and I’d do it twice.
So happy birthday. Don’t be nice
about it. Open it and sigh.
I know. I’ve heard. I don’t know why.
You take the last of everything
and always have. The offering
gets made — one slice, one cup, one chair —
and you accept it then and there.
I’ve never once objected. No:
I file it quietly and go.
So happy birthday. Take the last.
I’ve kept a record. It is vast.
You call and start halfway inside
a sentence. You have never tried
hello, or how are you, or who
is speaking. Straight to what is new.
I’ve grown to like it. It’s a gift.
It saves the two of us the drift
of small talk. Skip it. Take the lead.
So: happy birthday. Call. Proceed.
You’ve told me twice this year I’m wrong
about a thing. You waited long
enough to say it kindly, then
you said it anyway. Again.
You were right on both, as ever.
Happy birthday. Don’t be clever.
Longer poems to read out loud at the table
Stay seated. This will not take long.
I’ve been assured that nothing’s wrong
with saying, once, in front of these,
a thing I’ve never said with ease.
The two of us grew up inside
one house, one hallway, one long slide
of winters where the furnace quit
and nobody made much of it
except for me. You did the rest.
You packed the lunches. You knew best
which coat went on which one of us,
and got us out without a fuss.
You did it quietly, and long,
and never once said it was wrong.
So here it is, said late and loud:
we saw it all. And we are proud.
I’ll stand up briefly. Stay right there.
There’s cake, and I’m entirely aware
that nobody came for a talk.
So: one short thing, then I will walk
back to my chair. There’s one of us
who drives. Who never makes a fuss
about the hour or the road.
Who turns up, takes the heavier load,
and drives the whole long way back too,
and never mentions it to you.
And here’s the toast, and here’s the fact:
this family has stayed intact
on her good sense for twenty years.
Sit down tonight. Somebody else steers.
So happy birthday. Take the seat.
You’re driving nobody. Now eat.
I’m told to say a word or two.
I’ll say them both, and both are true.
Among the people at this table
there is exactly one who’s able
to tell you what we ate the year
the power went, and who was here,
and what the argument was for,
and who slept on the kitchen floor.
She keeps it all. She always has.
The rest of us have let it pass
and leaned on her to hold the lot,
which she has done and never sought
one word of thanks for any of it.
So here’s the thanks. And here’s the bit
I meant to say: you can stop now.
We’ll take a turn. We’ve all learned how.
Right — anything you’ve got, hold up.
A glass, a mug, a paper cup.
I’ve got one thing and then I’m through.
I’ve known this woman longer than you,
or anyone, or she’s known me,
which is the truer way to see
it, since she got here first and stayed
and watched the whole of it get made:
the bad haircuts, the worse ideas,
the two or three genuinely bad years,
and never once did she repeat
a word of it outside this street.
That’s what a sister does. That’s all.
The rest is just a phone, a call,
a drive, a Sunday, and a chair
kept empty till you’re sitting there.
So: happy birthday. Sit. Be still.
We’ve got the kitchen. We always will.
Questions and answers
How much of a shared childhood can four lines actually carry?
One image, and no summary at all. The failure that produces the sunshine-and-laughter card is an attempt to fit a whole decade into a quatrain, which forces every word up to a level of abstraction where nothing is specific to anybody. A verse holds one object well and a decade not at all. So pick the smallest thing that could only belong to the two of you — the loose stair, the mittens over the stove, the coat handed down twice — and put it in the first two lines without explaining what it stands for. She will do the rest herself, faster than you could write it. Three good images means three verses across three years, not one crowded one.
Nothing dramatic ever happened between us. Where does the concrete detail come from?
From the hours no adult was in the room. That is the only territory a sister owns outright — your parents can claim the holidays, cousins can claim the summers, family friends can claim the big occasions, but the walk home, the arrangement about who told what, the argument that ran a whole winter and was never settled: those belong to the two of you and to nobody else. Drama is not the requirement, exclusivity is. Ask who else could have written the line, and if the honest answer is anybody at the table, keep looking. A repeated ordinary thing identifies a pair of sisters better than a dramatic one.
Every memory I have of her has me in it too. Does that make the poem about me?
Not with a sister, and this is where the usual advice does not apply. Writing to a parent you are told to keep yourself out of it, because the piece is meant to be about them. A sister poem with only her in it reads like a reference letter — the whole point of the relationship is that it is a shared object, and us is the correct subject. What to watch instead is the direction the lines travel. If each stanza starts with what she did and ends with what it meant to you, the poem is hers. If it starts with how you felt and uses her as the occasion, it has drifted, and the tell is a run of lines beginning with I.
She is the older one and has always been the one who writes the cards. Does a verse from me look like trying too hard?
It looks like a change, which is a different thing and usually a welcome one. In most pairs one sister ends up holding the correspondence, and the one who does it has been writing into silence for years without ever saying so out loud. A verse arriving from the other direction is not competition, it is evidence that the traffic goes both ways. Two things keep it from feeling like a performance. Do not apologize for the years of not writing — one line at most, or none at all, because a preamble turns her birthday into your amends. And do not match her register. If she writes long and warm, write short and plain: the contrast reads as your own voice rather than an imitation of hers.
I have to read it out at the table and I already know my voice will go. How do you get through it?
Rehearse it out loud until the sentences are worn in — three or four times through, alone, at full volume rather than mumbled. What breaks a reader is meeting a line for the first time in front of people, and a line you have already said aloud has lost its ambush. Three other things help. Sit down to read rather than standing, because standing raises the stakes for everybody in the room. Keep the last line short and concrete, so you need little breath for the part where you are least likely to have any. And hand a second copy to somebody beside you first, with the arrangement that they take over if you stop.