A Poem For My Brother

I miss the days we ran the streets

our feet hot from sidewalk and Rob and John

and the girl who only came out at dusk

when her father was out.

Do you remember how we thought she died?

We told tales about her bloody demise but

we saw her scurrying from car to door 5 years on.

Our days were filled with danger

and challenges in the street from bullies

and near friends. Alliances were made and broken

and reforged. We built forts

in the fields behind the pastor’s house.

We dug into the earth , constructed secret trenches

covered with tarps, deathtraps that we survived.

We hid in the trees in the yard

while our mother cried in vain from the doorways.

God how I miss you and

Your sweet face, the scruff of your neck its awkward tufts,

you smiled, laughed and I never noticed

you rarely spoke. I was always talking, Rob was always talking

and you are a quiet man now with responsibilities

and children and I am a grandmother now

living a thousand miles away. Home is so far away.

I wish I could reach back into time and squeeze the last juice

from our childhood because the silence and distance

are so great. They are thunder rolling across

the valley of my mind. I know I am difficult. I have always been difficult.

But I would give ten years to spend an afternoon playing

With my brother in the yard once again.