Visiting My Sister In The Psych Unit

Me and My Sister In Better Times

I tap on the window glass of the art therapy room to get my sister’s attention. Her big brown eyes, magnified by drugstore reading glasses, look up. She sees me but doesn’t react, goes back to painting a naïve scene of the East River. So I wait for her, as I have for decades.

My sister embodies the grit of a bullfighter. She has a big heart for small dogs and a guttural laugh that defies her petite…