Your Brother

Your daddy was a preacher

In the church down the lane

Prescribing Bible-realities

For our everyday malaise

Your bother was the boy

Who wore a face so long it swept the floor

He had a badly drawn tattoo—head of an eagle

That appeared the artist was in shivers while he worked

Chickens and goats disappeared in his wake

Yet your daddy

Kept prescribing 

Bible- realities for our everyday malaise

Your brother only smiled—   

Gap-toothed, like a lecher

When he was with a certain wild-eyed girl

Under the staircase

One day

They took him away, loud and furious

And cudgelled his brains with clubs

I mourned him, deep and long

Till my daddy beat me out of my blues

“No one mourns prodigals this long”

Your daddy, 

Crying his son’s name in his dream

Died of a heartbreak

And the church down the lane

Lies empty and harangued