Brother

Brother

You sent a tower from Paris,
and a pipe from Amsterdam.
From week to month these
objects wrote your diary.
A pen from the feathers
of a rare and distant bird.

I cooked fish and pheasant
in the pub where you’d served.

Beer brewed in Belgium, wine
pressed near Rome. Table
mats from Turkey, paintings
framed in the Ukraine. Flavour
for dreams, as orders, steam
and shouting trapped me.

Vodka and ice skates, ‘Don’t
use together, please.’

A letter from Siberia. The
man coughing, the woman
smiling at you before she
left the train. At night I laughed
in bars and gazed at girls. When
the noise grew loud enough

I forgot you. That morning I
thought the phone was my

Alarm. Words of your bus
crash set like wax about
my heart. But the hospital
released you. The healthy tide
of presents were trumpets to
relief. I followed you, from

China to Thailand, spinning
the globe in my hand.

Your photos are like doors
locked with time.The one
of village brothers is on
my wall, by a picture of you
with our mother. My mind
steps through them.


We're with one another.


Copyright: Joseph O'Neill 2006