8/11

Brothers, I never had, instead
sisters in the park with pinkish
barrettes in blond hair, feather
curls whipping in southern wind.

Still, part of me liked toy trucks
and metal slides and basketball
hoops; the sort of adventures that
not just anyone can have.

But little boys can be so cruel,
spraying at me with stink bombs
and tripping me with wire in the
woods behind my momma's house.

Yet, something was always a bit
different when you were here, even
if your firecrackers were snapping in
my window on a heated Friday night.

And sometimes my best friend's
mother just didn't care, left for
weeks and we all kept the secret
-- kept each other close at night.

Afternoons boombox blasting on the
roof and I think that, for the first
time I felt a little bit comfortable
being a little more than different.

Aaron T and Aaron A, my brothers,
inside you were twins, and our
mommas were working together
in a chainsaw factory, playing
spades on the weekends.

We lit each other's first cigarettes
and went to bed with our heads
wet, but didn't give up on each
other just yet, not just yet.

You ran and got me a rag when I
sliced at my finger in woodshop,
sopped up what was red, raw, and
wrought, or so we all thought.

One week I left home but I had to
come back early, the highway had
captured one of your bodies and we
all wept but I can't even remember

I can't even remember what his
casket looked like, or what my
momma's looked like, or what
Aaron T's momma's looked like

I just remember that her ceremony
was closed casket and by then I
was glad for that, I had decided
that I liked it better that way.

So we spent a lot of time as smoke
clouds after that, lighting each other's
last cigarettes of the night, what once
had been play had became necessity.

Because you and momma met quick
ends on opposite ends of the highway,
because the road to our homes got
stained with something more than black

Because Debbie was growing sicker
by the day, because she threw away
all the pictures and lied to us and said
the end wasn't near, not yet, children.

Brother it has been six years, today,
six years full of mustn't and won'ts,
six years full of doubts resting on
some dusty, black, country road.

And I can't say I'm better this way,
I can't lie and say it is all for the best,
but I can say we lived through and that
at night, I can still feel your breath.

So today I will go to the woods
behind your momma's house and we
will chase the dogs and not gaze
at the highway at all.