They found holes in my brother’s brain
last Tuesday.
Not actual holes, the doctor assured us, but the holes
on the scan are where blood flow is decreased.
The film, so thin and powerful,
the film and the space where blood
should be, and the
space
where my words should be.
The computer slide clicks.
Does he have trouble sleeping? the doctor asks.
Yes, my mother replies.
That’s this part of his brain.
Oh, she says.
Does he have concentration issues? That’s this hole.
Not a hole, I want to whisper. Just a
hole on the slide where the blood should be.
Remember?
Does he have trouble knowing
cause and effect, result, and consequence?
He is my brother, I want to say.
The computer screen peels back, all that film underneath
accusing me of not speaking, and I crawl into his
photographed brain. I nestle there, in a not-hole,
and give him everything I see and feel, all the words
and sound and I pour open my veins so he can take
my blood, a libation. I crawl around, finding holes
for God to fill with love and miracle and map it,
so everything I knew is new again—my brother,
his love and movement. Before I leave, I find
the wrinkles of his brain and drop tiny alarms,
rigged with a timer, set to crack open in the grooves
of his thoughts in two days, five weeks, seven months,
four years. That chirp of
I love you
I love you
I love you
