Absent Things as If They Are Present
My brother walks through
the green door to visit.
My brother fills up a glass
of water for me to drink.
This is a love story.
The scene is domestic.
We cook a meal. I almost
touch my brother’s hand
with tenderness. My brother’s arms
protect the mess on my face
like fancy angels. He knows
I don’t mean everything I say.
We walk with each other’s weaknesses
on one sparkling leash. Absent things
never leave because they never arrive.
I feel my brother’s hands over my eyes
like bread. The wine in my throat
reverses back into grapevine.
My brother walks out here
through this love story
turned religious story. His steps
fill my face like the sand
in that poem where Jesus walks
beside someone in doubt.
Apology for the Camellias I Could Not Write About
Like a white queen’s ruffled collar, my mother’s favorite flowers
surround each step
to my parent’s house like fallen guards.
Their home could be any woman’s wanting
palace, any room of folded arms, an oubliette
concealed in linoleum.
In this yard I decided how to treat my mother. This cement: my disgust.
I failed to let her bloom:
I squashed each camellia, my mother’s simple pleasure, my myth.
My hands, if you look close,
are one hungry pit of snakes’ and their dark, flicking mouths. I admit,
I saw her blooming. I did.
It was the calla lilies that excited me. Their firm, emerald stem.
I thought they were stronger
than camellias. I was wrong. So easily and unknowingly,
I snapped even their necks.
Doors
A soldier knocks on a door
and opens it
his family is sitting on a rug
My brother’s family
sits on a rug
I am not there
A soldier knocks on a door
opens it
makes a peanut butter
& jelly sandwich
for dinner
A soldier’s family
is thinly spread over
each time he walks
through a door that is
or is not his own
//
My brother knocks on a door
and forgets whose house he is
A soldier pounds on a door
in allegiance. He leaves
pieces of himself
everywhere he goes
My brother pounds on his pieces
and calls them patriotic
A soldier pounds on a home
but sometimes, I think
it’s my house
//
I pound on my brother’s door
and cannot enter
I pound on my brother’s loyalty
and cannot see in the dark
I pound on my brother’s dark
shaped like a soldier
I pound on this poem
instead of my brother
I am afraid
of his answer
I fall asleep in my hands
each time, with these words
knocking at my face
//
I pound on love
and find myself pounding
on traditional terms
I pound on my brother
and he sings
the national anthem
I pound on a photo
my brother keeps of us
during deployments and
beat the empty air
I pound in the daylight
and the nighttime
and not even the
neighbor’s mariachi music
consoles me
Who I think my brother is
depends on the year he moved
out of our house
the day he joined
the Air Force
Now, I beg
on a strange carpet
I pound on my brother
so he will tell me
just once
he would do anything
for me
but he won’t
not even in the house
of this poem
My brother will not
walk through the doors
his family is not here
