unless it was for my sister’s father, and
oldest brother’s, the son of a bitch
who left her for another woman
so alone in Hector, Arkansas that she found
the arms of my father just a few weeks later.
Sister, the fist of your anger has bolted
shut. I never knew the loneliness
of a truck speeding by your gravel, the longing
for the dark side of the mountain.
Thicket-dense. Smoked Saturn.
Bruise regalia. Flinch-wrist.
Broken bone. My blonde-haired brother
sent on a bus to Texas alone. I have seen
the photos, snaggle-toothed and brawny
in his varsity football uniform. When I met him,
scrawny, dragging Marlboros like there was no more
air. Sister, you told me, our mother just the other
day on the phone said I would still be with him
if he didn’t leave. I knew then her sorrow,
my own, how a man leaves an alphabet
of desire vowel-round in our mouths.
