Molly Fisk: Maybe I’ll Just Sing To Him
As the planned flaw in a woven blanket
banishes hubris or lets mischief out,
her breasts greet each other unevenly.
Meg Kearney (Two Poems)
When he was dying my little brother
said cancer was “the sins of our mother”
visited upon him. What’s also true:
her heart was the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Andrew Reginald Hairston: Sweet Potato Pie
Having gone public with your bisexuality the month prior — and blocking your parents and sister at the same time — the memories would have to suffice
Sean Sexton: Unrecognizable
A friend of my sister attended the reading—
sat in the back of the hall—coming forth only after
everyone had gone.
Michael Simms: Leaving Walden
Is it true the distance between atoms
is proportionate to the distance between stars
and the world we know is mostly empty space?
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Anger, the Dalai Lama, and Elliot’s Red Boots
aren’t we more like pack mules
than gods most days, picking our way
across the desert or up a mountain path with avalanches
and the heaviest loads are our grudges and fears
Daniel Lawless: The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With
Was a cubit long and weighed half as much
As an average newborn U.S. baby.
Carolyn Miller: Rapture
When they said the world was coming to an end,
I thought about my brother, his long limbs,
his good shoulders and thick hair, his small
white teeth, his beautiful feet at the end
of the hospital bed.
Christine Fair: Triptych
If she had a girl, she wanted her to be pretty-popular-slender-cheerleader.
She got me.
She named me Carol.
Tony Gloeggler: Working Class Heroes
My father opened the trunk,
tossed me my glove with a worn
hardball tucked in its pocket, eased
into a catcher’s crouch as I paced
60 feet away.
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: A Good Man
To this day, my sister and I wonder if Dad
Got it right. “Fear,” he explained years later,
“Is sometimes the only tool.”
Toi Derricotte: For my unnamed brother (1943-1943)
you live this
life i’ll live the
next
Video: Little Brother
Little Brother charts the transitional time of adolescence when childhood ends and independence comes into fruition.
Jeffrey Harrison: Double Visitation
There I was with my father again alive
walking around the back yard together,
and I hardly noticed that it wasn’t our back yard
or that he looked like he was in his fifties.
