I can still feel the rap of your knuckles,
brother, striking against my own,
stinging, bruising, like four faceless
I can still feel the weighted air shifting
between us, I who was never quite
quick enough to slip from beneath your
reach, and rarely, if ever, managed to connect.
There are things I cannot pretend
to miss -- the swift punch to the shoulder,
the ever-elaborate wrestling holds,
a perfect pearl of milky spit dangling,
like a lazy thought, above my face.
I do not miss the ghost you pretended
to be, silent, tugging, inch by creeping inch,
at the foot of our childhood bed.
Your ghost is real now, free to wander
room to room. And I no longer fear,
though the world you left compels us to.
I miss you in the ways you were soft,
the gentle humor you held close,
the vulnerable boy hidden from view.
I miss the moments you cried, unashamed.
Tonight, as always, I kiss my daughter,
let her snuggle in, as she wraps her
small fingers around my crooked thumb,
drifting effortlessly again into sleep.
It's the kind of calm that I live for,
and would fight this whole world to keep.
