Splits
If my brother were a rabbit,
I’d call him Ginger.
I’d clip his dark nails, hitting embedded veins only sometimes,
and cooing to him as he fidgeted on my thighs.
If my brother were a newt,
I’d call him Boris.
I’d suck his aquarium clean with a hollow plastic tube,
choking on filth when I forgot the right ways to breathe.
If my brother were a poplar,
I’d carve initials
into his stiff-lined trunk, trailing fingers in the gummy sap,
licking my blue-rinsed knuckles, thinking I’d made him cry.
If my brother weren’t so far
I wouldn’t call him
outside houses in the old cracked snow, waiting and knowing
the improbability of a broken ring tone.
Many miles away from me,
my brother rests head
to pillow, skeleton spine curving just under human flesh,
his body marking a possessive apostrophe.
And right here, I sit, bone to bone,
stacked ankles only
separated from him by an insignificant tweak,
a slight cross-hair of genetic divergence.
I am then a dappled sparrow;
He feeds me sometimes,
old rinds, bad bread bits, stuff gathered up in the cup of his hand,
parts of half-eaten things, wholes becoming half his, half mine.
