My Brother Left, But He Came BackFor Christmas we got machine guns with rocket launchers and “seven bonus weapon delivery systems!” we barricaded ourselves behind snow banks tossed plastic green grenades made the whistling sounds and the cartoon KABOOMS! for the landing effects and our friends did fake shrieks as if hit. We didn’t know this was real living in the suburbs with our little patches of manicured lawn green grass edge trimmed to perfection against the hard sidewalk surface even though Vietnam loomed closer body counts mounting on the TV news everyday we were just kids we would live forever and it was just another show until my brother went the one I always looked up to who protected me from the world the one I asked for advice about everything what to wear girls what to eat what music to listen to. But the day he went I missed him-- there was a hole in my chest-- for eight miserable months waiting to hear from him a letter a card. Then one day a man in a uniform came to the door my mother told me to leave the room and when he left my mother was crying on the couch a hanky to her face she looked up at me through the clouds of tears that lost look on her face and didn't say a word just pulled me to her held me tight, so tight that it hurt. My brother did come home came home in a box no one left to protect me from the world as they lowered him into the ground. But who had protected him? And who will protect them all from the world now? EatingThere seems to be no sense to this dull tedious ritual spearing fork into meat bringing it to the mouth chewing chewing chewing as your wife is packing her bags up to leave cutting, spearing, chewing as your father hangs by a life’s thread on the morphine drip swallowing, drinking, spearing again as your brother lies white as a sheet, the heart monitor beeps coming slower and slower chewing chewing chewing as they hand you your last check with a “Sorry” and a “Good luck” cutting chewing swallowing wiping your mouth as your life slowly, steadily unravels becomes an empty well the life you can’t seem to stop. Putting fork down all done done. And what’s for dessert? A Heart Song for YouWriting simple as I do
nothing esoteric profound nothing from the cosmos or beyond just listen: I feel lost lost lost when you’re not around. Simple, to the point, the truth. Heart feeling heavy when you’re not there, at night reach in the dark in the silence just want to wrap my arms around the place you would be, where you were, hear you whisper in my ear, feel your breath on my cheek, lay your head on my chest, stroke your hair, hold you forever forever forever in my arms the heart of the man knows what his head doesn’t you said once but now it knows want to feel you warm against me no space between want to share the air that you breathe drink in that first kiss tell you I love you watch your eyes consume the words know that it’s true want to get back to that place feel your heart magnet love beating against the walls of mine two hearts echoing as one feel our tears intermingling warm a salty sea of birth, want to get back back to that place like no other your small hand in mine my hand on your hip your eyes on mine your lips, tongue, on mine carry you hold you skin to skin dance with you at midnight and say there has never been a time a day a night there has never been a love like there is here now today.
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