My brother in the evenings, long after his death,
would take a corner seat and sigh under his breath.
Yes, sigh, and mutter things that I could almost hear.
Then, like a painted house, he faded over years
until his image and his whisper both were one.
There was a final dream, when this small talk was done.
I walked along a hall where all the recent dead
were triaged on a stony floor, and cupped his head
as gently as my dreaming arms would harbor him.
But couldn’t stop the fear that trembled on his skin.
An endless row of people tended those they loved:
there was no canopy, or sky, or stars above,
or walls enclosing us – the dead just simply lay,
until the dream had said the thing it came to say.
