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More Lies
by Karin Gottshall

Sometimes I say
I’m going to meet my sister
at the café—
even though I have no sister—
just because it’s such
a beautiful thing to say.
I’ve always thought so,
ever since

I read a novel in which
two sisters were constantly meeting
in cafés. Today, for example,
I walked alone
on the wet sidewalk,
wearing my rain boots,
expecting

someone might ask where
I was headed. I bought
a steno pad and a watch battery,
the store windows
fogged up. Rain in April is
a kind of promise, and it costs

nothing. I carried a bag of books
to the café and ordered
tea. I like a place that’s lit
by lamps. I like a place
where you can hear people talk
about small things,

like the difference between
azure and cerulean,
and the price of tulips. It’s
going down. I watched
someone who could be
my sister walk in,
shaking the rain

from her hair. I thought,
even now florists are filling
their coolers with tulips,
five dollars a bundle. All over
the city there are sisters.
Any one of them
could be mine.

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