At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he
learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite
My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee
Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.
When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks
sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions
while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas
My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'
He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes
which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off
we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight
My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night
smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds
