SEVENTEEN

It was cold for California

when my phone rang half past 3,

my little brother’s on the other line.

He’s shaking like a leaf.

At 17 years old, he lost his

best friend on a eld.

There’s no battle in our history book

compared to how he feels.

Alabaster faces,

all lined up, turning gray.

I watched my brother hold a casket

before his graduation day.

The boy’s poor mother cried

with screams that echoed through the town.

Like a Siren on a shoreline,

begging God to let her drown.

So my brothеr crawled beside hеr

and he got beneath the sheet.

He let a woman hold him,

so that she could make believe.

She said, “Your arms are a bit smaller,

and your hair has got a wave,

but you smell just like my little boy.

You’ve almost got his face.”

So he lay there on the couch

until the sky turned red and tan.

And in a full-grown woman’s arms,

my little brother was a man.