It couldn't have been much, whatever
could be tossed into two plastic garbage bags
and carried, from the station wagon
a word which we had neither heard nor spoken,
but one that would become as common
as a surname, shorthand for others to describe us.
We carried our toothbrushes and combs,
clothes and underwear, carried whatever toys
or stuffed animal could be retrieved,
while the cacophony of sirens sped our comatose
mother to the cold comfort of hospital rooms,
plastic roses, a potpourri of pills to replace
the ones which had not managed to kill her.
We took a blanket or two, worn and pilling,
superhero pajamas, damp familiarity
of our own sweat-smell.
But mostly, we took all that we could not
speak of -- the unshifting weight which
an absent father leaves, ladder rungs of anxiety
we could neither climb nor give name to,
the mutual shame of bed wetting
and the sudden difficulty of common speech.
We carried each other, brother, hardly
aware that we were doing so, always balancing,
always stronger than we looked or imagined.
We carried that grief until it settled in,
quiet and unobtrusive, a gentle tune humming
through the bones. I'm singing it now, though you
have been gone now these many years,
pausing just long enough for you to whistle
through the grass blades, bend that grosbeak's note
just so, rustle the cotton shirts and work pants
upon the line in a pantomime of breath,
the familiar motion of walking away.
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