my brother, the dead kid

He died before he was even

Born. Lucky him. The dead

Have their own concerns. They worry

Less about the living

Who have money and plans

And bananas and family who need

To be worried about. I am scared.

He walks me to school. He walks me

To the market. He walks me home.

Someday I will marry and he

Will stand beside me and I

Will feel like a statue with no

Soul, no love,

Nothing of value but the flower

In my lapel. Everything,

It seems, hints at innocence

Except the living. The priests

Speak of the corruption of the body,

But the dead don’t change.

They are eternal. They are eternal and pure

In a way that I, fragile with life,

Cannot yet be.

Jeff Mock writes: “My collection Ruthless, was published in 2010, and my poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.”