i'll let you be recluse & writer
you can describe how strange horrible
it feels to suddenly realize that one of us will someday die
the other left standing in the dark middle of a railroad
silhouette illuminated by a single streetlamp
mouth open with a granite rock wobbling in hand
i pray that it's me who falls first
after our parents so they won't have to bury a child
& you my only brother can remove my name from
the lyrics of every song you wrote for me
i can't give you the words to write
but find them & add them to your own memories
of me on a spring afternoon standing in shorts
on a softball field or rooftop with
hands on my knees & two wisps of hair in my face like
moths orbiting shafts of remembered yellow light
stick out your tongue & i'll teach you to whistle
without your fingers if you teach me to scowl & squirm
fart with my armpit & spit melon seeds at lowing cows
we'll dangle from plebian treebranches upside down together
& when i fall off the monkey bars you laugh
but when you're on your head in a heap of kinetic energy
i pick you up & brush dirty tear spirals off your chin
i'll drift away first into sleepland with a smile plastered on my
strawberry cheeks squirming legs & my body
coiled tight like a bedspring with laughter stomach cramps
from the stories & jokes you whisper on the floor in the half-lit gloom
i will be your darling sister forever lying to mom
about the time you burned a hole in the linoleum
& you will throw rocks at the back of my head
from a young persimmon tree like a noisy bird gargling bug juice
pretending to skip them across a pristine lake in the
blue grayness of the churchyard before dawn