BROTHER

We were brothers the way that glowing marbles 

roll toward a collision of amnesia. 

We washed our selves in shallow ponds. 

We rubbed cool sticks of deodorant into our armpits. 

Our brains flooded with change. 

We got jobs and quit them. 

We wondered what love was

under the brittle slithering branches of a grapevine. 

At night we dreamt of snakes and their fiery tongues. 

You stuttered that day, your face a wilted dandelion.

You collapsed in the carport. 

Your name roared in our mouths. 

I worried your name had changed without us knowing, 

some curse to keep you in that place we had no access to. 

There was no poison to suck and spit out,

no pierced arteries spewing on the concrete. 

We fought for your head, yearned to cradle you,

to say your name, to locate your wounds one by one, and to heal you.    

Grant Gerald Miller was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama and an assistant editor at Black Warrior Review.