The Brother

Eileen Pettycrew

Give me darkness. I know that sky. The brother I followed
to reservoir’s cattails, the zing of blue dragonflies, a dead carp—
its bloated body summoning the brother.
He poked it with a stick,
smudged the sky with a monster we couldn’t outrun.
I am the girl who followed the brother,
breathing the sky he breathed, calling his name.
Now the brother is here but not here;
I call his name but my words go unanswered.
Sometimes loss stabs me like a stick.
Is it true the brother is lost to me, far from the sky
I swallowed, the darkness he let escape?

I swallowed the darkness he let escape,
is it true? The brother is lost to me, far from the sky.
Sometimes loss stabs me like a stick:
I call his name but my words go unanswered.
Now the brother is here but not. Here,
breathing the sky he breathed, calling his name,
I am the girl who followed. The brother
smudged the sky with a monster we couldn’t outrun;
he poked it with a stick—
its bloated body summoning the brother
to reservoir’s cattails, the zing of blue dragonflies, a dead carp:
Give me darkness I know. That sky. The brother I followed.

 

*Inspired by Judith Barrington

Eileen Pettycrew’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Calyx, Watershed Review, The Scream Online Dreams Poetry Anthology, Hubbub, VoiceCatcher, and others. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.