For Gregory.
I.
Amidst gyms smells of socks and sweat
And grandmothers fanning themselves in southern strife
He bobs up three irrelevant steps
To cross the stage on which he was handed his life.
Cylindrical. Bold faced typing. Tied with a ribbon of red.
Proclaiming his accomplishments, announcing his manhood,
Prophesying a darkness that lay ahead.
II.
He kicked the center so hard
Embers shot out like roman candles
Into the air. The broad shoulders
Of logs broke and scattered, timber
Into timber, shattered and sunk underneath
The heavy evening heat. Squinting,
He tracked the spider-veins
Winding up the wringing wood,
Carving blood images
Into his eyes.
In a circle of stone and a pit of ash,
He kindled his flame,
Fed it birch and maple leaves in a crackling rush
Of underbrush. It was calling
To him, asking for food,
This hissing child, his sifting
Shifting infant, his burning
Baby boy.
It turned.
And in a flash it swallowed
And burned black everything
It touched.
But, with leaden shoes, he gleefully
Trampled the flame, eyes
Shining, teeth bared
And ready to bite.
‘I built you! You can’t touch me!
I made you first burst into flames!’
He watched the insolent fire writhe
Beneath his shiny rubber boot
And turned his glowing face to the sky,
Its constellations, subtle patterns
Lighting his last night in the backyard at home.
III.
His exodus was unrelenting and quick.
T-shirt and jeans hung around adrenaline and muscle,
He dove into closets, emerged with suitcases, and
Was gone.
He smoked the whole way to the beach, wailing
“Fuck this town! I ain’t never comin’ back!”
He left a trail of butts like breadcrumbs
On I-26 that day.
Believing, beneath the deafening bass
How he might return that way.
IV.
I am dreaming.
I am in a gown, floating down a channel on a boat.
There is music everywhere, and stars.
Each note pinpricks the silence like a bell,
Incessant, calling out to me from the dark.
I blink. The stars turn greener.
I blink. The stars are numbers.
I blink. The numbers are my clock.
I blink. The clock reads 4:02.
4:02 in the morning.
And the song is my brother screaming.
Shrieking my name through my ringing phone
In the dark.
V.
A sober night.
He sits and picks a collection of strings
To say what he was never meant to say.
His lies begin to harmonize.
His eyes, still swollen from the crash.
His bleary smile, hating the world,
Through ecstasies of alcohol, nicotine,
Heroin, coke, and sprinkles of hash.
Our father has turned off his phone for the night.
The loving become few and far between.
VI.
Like the branches of the wood he used to burn,
My brother’s black veins pulse against his skin.
On the other side of his elbow, a tunnel
Has formed.
A wound that knows not how to heal itself.
Like a belly button, it sits in longing
To reunite with the cord that’s gone away.
He swigs and smokes
And pokes it with his thumb.
‘It doesn’t fuckin’ hurt at all.
It’s pretty goddamn numb.’
VII.
My sibling has a midas touch.
He has been in this house
and has not returned.
A silhouette of my childhood sits framed
beside the front door. Upon it,
scrawled deep into its fibers, a slip
of paper proclaims me 'The Golden Child',
carved by his weak hand. Above this,
scripture, printed in lovely typeface, reads
"Blessed are those who have faith
and have not yet seen."
The paper is discarded.
My picture still remains.
