CHRIS

 

Before he died, 3 or 4 years before

he died, my brother had 8 or 9 teeth,

about ¼ of his hearing, the heart of

 

a fledgling bird, a lifelong love of

booze drugs, wheat thins and

cheeseburgers, and rages sudden

and wild, they’d crash scary

 

as Niagra Falls crackling at night

in an electric storm. Eyes crazed he

lurches feral, craves himself soothed

and held, not alone I suppose, but

nested. Before he died.

 

Chris lived for years smack in the stony

middle of the Oregon State Penitentiary,

everything iron and rock, more than once

 

beaten badly by gangsters who smashed his

soul and his pink hearing aids into plastic slivers.

Slivers.

 

Before he died, he stole my social

security number and we didn’t talk

for a year. Our history isn’t easy nor

a simple story and my frequent disgust

 

with Chris--his jagged wounded ways, his sad

strangenesses, living on disability and smokes,

his tweed sportcoat and turquoise bracelet,

and his longing for our dad, that junkyard dog,

 

just to give him a few slivers of kindness before

he died--my recoiling from these earthquakes these

volcanoes from Chris, an addiction of my own, perhaps.