I Lay My Brother Downby Gary Short
The day before he dies
I lift him,
while the nurse works
coiled and crimped tubes
that run from his body,
a tangle of exterior veins.The white sun breaks through the window,
takes the room and clarifies
shadows the simple poplar limbs make
on the hospital wall. The leaves are all gone.
The leaves and color are gone.
It hurts,his bones sharp against my chest,
the lightness of him, his body
lucid and thinned
to this shaking weight.
A ninety-pound dying man.
Tomorrow he'll be gone.My brother's eyes are closed.
I pull closer.
I want to hold him
in this world.
His hair brushes my cheek.
I lay my brother down
on the white sheet. My brother
opens his eyes
and sees shadows, sparrows on the wall
flocking to the bare limbs
of the poplar. "Look at that,"
he says and points,"The leaves are returning to the tree."