Little Brother
You sputter out a request for water,
I stand in the doorway and say I told you so.
You cough in your sleep and my heart flutters
the way moth’s wings beat beside a lightbulb.
I almost think I hope it hurts a thousand times,
catching the thought and crumpling it up, paranoid
that the world might hear and respond.
I’m not superstitious but my brain is.
You cough in your sleep and I almost pray for the first time
in eleven years. Just because I’m not religious
doesn’t mean I don’t want to be.
My sister and I shake our heads, compare sloping shoulders,
nestled beside the dining table like curmudgeonly film critics
in the back of the theater, hair heavy, lids heavy.
We commiserate over our age, our womanhood,
build a little fort you’re not allowed in.
Not that it matters to you; you got the queen bed
and your own room when you were three.
I kiss the dog on the head and you chastise me for loving him.
“Fuck off,” I say instead of “goodnight,” not sure you hear
the anxiety, the annoyance, the love. “I told you so,” I read
off the script, arms crossed and eyes red, reading those words
until they shed their meaning, which they never do,
repeating them as I stand outside your door
with a glass of water, waiting for the next cough.