Poetry |

“Little Brother”

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.

Contributor
Jane Donohue

Jane Donohue is a writer of poetry and prose from New Hampshire. Her work has been featured in the Northern New England Review, The Woven Tale Press, TXTOBJX, and Autofocus.

Posted in Poetry

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