I’ve been drowned

By my own brother. Tonight

He comes from a sailor’s grave

With a makeshift lantern.

He comes lending money,

Ivy-covered,

Taking from the water

With him a shut-eyed smile

And a scalpel blade.

He’ll be peering

Through a satin slip.

He’ll be breathing shallow

While I’m burning up both my lungs.

He’ll be teaching me

How they do it in France.

I’ll be nodding, coughing,

As if I know nothing at all.

Many times I have died before—

Once with him beside her

When I come into the kitchen

She’s telling him

He’s beautiful.

I stand there watching,

Picking the food

From between my teeth.

Someday, I’ll be a brother.

A brother knows both beauty

And death to their bones—

He created them.

Tomorrow

He’ll miss his own room,

Waking cold to the smell of

My hair on his red pillow.

Asking himself why

Many seasick men,

Lovesick men wait wondering

If that lantern clings

To meet moonlit tides,

Or is buried below a hollowed

Promise of tomorrow.

You’re too much!

She’s telling me.

You’re just like him on his knees,

Glimpsing to find the bathroom light

From underneath the door.

The light line, it fades into the blue

Of her slip when she wakes—

When he knocks that door again

Handing me back my lightless night

With a pillow in his fist.