Looking for Your Brother Again

the kitchen door open someone recognized it as a room
brief there     reptilian big show     heartbeat
his ribcage which had been interrupted
he was whittling a place down the hill
shaping it in his shoulders
forcing a smile
which he left dry every time he worried

	this was remorse
	this is how the novel
	was supposed to begin

but he has a brother left in his head
jugs empty at the fountain of nostalgia
talking a whole era as prescription
he opened the door     and his own light met him
he barked     at last recognizing napoleon’s ghost
a stranger turning out to be a cliché in eagle feathers

	a quiver of arrows brought him a rope
	out of the quicksand the rank reek of heroism
	hell     at least you found the sight of light
	that shadow was your brother

hope standing prostitute against a blank wall
the heaving death of boarded-up buildings
from now on     he decided     dead horses
invite them in     turn a statue into a doctor
so you could see him do it     ha
so he could send you smiling
and this     is how the novel ends

from Yew Nork (2014)