Homage to Brother

by Bill Ratner

 

He holds me like a chef
lowering a turkey
into a pot of oil.
You, the dirty ant that crawls
on the floor,
he drawls.

I worship the Cossack green of his eyes,
the crook of his chin, his bigness.
He muscles his Schwinn like Jesse James
breaks broncos on the Little Dixie.
He ranges like weather.

My father’s Buick pops gravel down the drive.
Shirking babysitting protocol my brother
straps me to a chair, slaps me left and right.
My hiccoughing sobs do nothing
to douse his rage at my existence.

As welcome kindness he re-gifts
me Esquire Magazine’s
What Every Young Man Should Know,
takes down his Genius at Work sign,
and nails it to my bedroom door.

After a late Spring of photographs
from the West, stage by stage
he succumbs to the ravaging
of his flesh. I watch him fade.
My passwords are iterations of his name.

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