My brother, with his chest stuck out rooster style,
strutted and wooed with feathered hair,
Hawaiian shirts, a guitar and the ability
to use Buffet songs to his advantage.
He never really did like me much.
I asked his girlfriend, why
she fell for it - she just giggled.
Maybe she didn't have the answer.
That night, a milky black in the water
by the lighthouse. Pizza and beer.
The other boat didn't have its lights on.
Impact interrupting the night - splashing,
my brother yelling, grabbing anything to keep
them afloat. The girls from the other boat
washed with fragments of fiberglass upon the shore -
I never did understand why they weren't
held on to. I knew there wasn't a chance,
but maybe a hope.
My parents sleepy eyed spent the night in the hospital
said the side of her face
was bruised, green and black, and scarred
from the impact. Probably bloated and her eyes
hazy like the fish I had seen wash up on shore.
They wouldn't let me go, didn't wake
me. Just morning, sun beginning to rise
and my brothers clothes over the line
- what they could salvage from the water.
He was always such a cocky son of a bitch,
but at home he barely moved anymore, crying
and taking pills. He looked at me differently,
just hellos and closed doors.