Thursday, August 24, 2006

Sleepless in South Bend

I'm an insomniac tonight; after I'd been listlessly tossing for over three hours, I gave up and went to the basement. My filter is a little fuzzy and isn't stopping me in time, so you get to see a poem I wrote a few weeks back when I was a wanna-be poet. You have to be nice, because this is the first draft and it's about family, so there. As of yet, it's untitled.

I always looked at my brother
As someone defined by the rest of us:
He was my only brother,
The second youngest

I finally recognized him coming out of his shell
One Christmas in Central City, Iowa

Mom was being given a family Bible:
"I don't know when it started,
But when people pass away,
I always seem to get their Bible."

My brother Jon was next to me.
I turned to him and said,
"Jon, when I die,
Just to mix things up,
You can have mine."

With his somber face,
He quipped, "You better not say that, Faith.
After all, if it's pretty nice,
There might be an accident."

I laughed, I couldn't contain it.
My little brother joked about
Killing me to hasten the gift of my Bible.

I told all my friends about the episode.
My brother was coming into his own
And I had missed when he went from
The quiet reader,
Doing all he could to distance himself from his
Four sisters,
To when we enjoyed each others' company
And he joined in the fray.

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