Brothers
Megan Denese Mealor
I pieced together mine
out of heirloom anecdotes
and alien bits of familial folklore
from the trenches of a childhood
bristling with rickety shadows
erratic and fitful, existing in the
garish borderline where I stored
all my barbed angles in kitschy boxes.
He once healed a disarmed duckling,
unleashed titanic plodding tortoises
into our shaggy gray yard adorned
with weeping willows spilling woe
into the prodigal soil poisoning azaleas.
He stood over me in every sandbox,
commanding the construction of castles,
his tenacious shade shrouding all reverie.
He was tyrannical at losing or winning,
his bike was gray and gleamed with gloating.
He conditioned the other cul-de-sac cherubs
to toss pebbles at my head because
I would always somehow deserve it.
Now he scowls through every Easter,
sighs resignedly under his breath
at the anemic table littered with the dregs
of our lifeless inheritance.
He checks the wall clock
above the white brick fireplace
in the pitted den
every time our mother speaks.
He asks me nothing,
I ask for nothing,
matching mazarine eyes
never failing to incite insinuation.
Previously published in Scarlet Leaf Review, May 2017
Megan Denese Mealor
I pieced together mine
out of heirloom anecdotes
and alien bits of familial folklore
from the trenches of a childhood
bristling with rickety shadows
erratic and fitful, existing in the
garish borderline where I stored
all my barbed angles in kitschy boxes.
He once healed a disarmed duckling,
unleashed titanic plodding tortoises
into our shaggy gray yard adorned
with weeping willows spilling woe
into the prodigal soil poisoning azaleas.
He stood over me in every sandbox,
commanding the construction of castles,
his tenacious shade shrouding all reverie.
He was tyrannical at losing or winning,
his bike was gray and gleamed with gloating.
He conditioned the other cul-de-sac cherubs
to toss pebbles at my head because
I would always somehow deserve it.
Now he scowls through every Easter,
sighs resignedly under his breath
at the anemic table littered with the dregs
of our lifeless inheritance.
He checks the wall clock
above the white brick fireplace
in the pitted den
every time our mother speaks.
He asks me nothing,
I ask for nothing,
matching mazarine eyes
never failing to incite insinuation.
Previously published in Scarlet Leaf Review, May 2017
