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I love the imagery in this poem. It’s amazing how a story as small as a few sentences can take you from the chair you’re sitting in and immerse you in abstract, seemingly impossible dimensions. And all the while telling truths about life, death.
This poem is on my mind a lot right now, the time of year when my brother Jody died.
The Family Silence
A hill came out of nowhere.
My dead brother said nothing;
he never did. Where was he leading me?
Up. On a night this clear, you could see
the broken bracelet of some small town
scattered at our feet. The little beads
of headlights came unstrung,
rolled down a black ribbon of river.
Sixty years of silence had turned his voice
to the whisper of cottonwoods.
You’re right: you don’t want to come back
until you’re dead, he said,
who’d died at birth. Then everything looks new.
The family silence trail at my heels,
doggedly sniffing other silences.
Did the man my brother had never grown into
slip through the slick streets?
The sound of footfalls turned to rain
and came out dry.