Splits

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.