Brother on Brother


I.

A jay landing in wire grass,
the tiki hut’s floor of wet tar --

prickly pears strung
on a line, blurred and gummy --

then, cast on my wall,
the silhouette of a branch

drifting; the after-air
of the opening door.

My skin, inescapable.
Outstretched on my belly,

I held onto the raised
stitching of the bedspread.

Waking from dream,
I knew those were your

hands stealing away
and the laughing.

II.

Red lights, smeared,
wobbling in a circle:

they hung over me, materializing
from a cloud, or a thicket:

flesh, long-enfolded,
was unflapped:

the sour smell of
moist grooves exposed.

What leapt inside me
when the bell’s mallet struck

wetly against my palette?
Who’d stop the ringing?

Afterwards I’d make a plan
to escape the bitter drops:

I’d sleep with my face
in a pillow and try

to eat the fibers.
I’d be immovable.

III.

You watched over me:
sandpaper, gorge -- fold fallow plow --
whispered, I could kill you.

-Greg Wrenn (Memorious)

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