for austin

compassion

My own brother, childhood altered immeasurably
by my induced sloppishness, saw me
bow down in defeat
before countless crushed powders
and eye-glazing bottles. All those years
I spent crashing into doorframes,
somewhere in the eves sat a boy crouched like a fetus,
wondering how to pray someone back
from the act of self-burning.
You could not have understood, my love,
though your mind twisted itself in attempts
to recognize my face.

We are older now and I have
lost the death-lust, but I have heard stories
of his magnificence. How he would not
turn some girl out into the streets, though
she lined her purse with the cutlery and
burned spoons in his bedroom. He
could not do it. He said that could have been her,
that could have been my sister.