Trapped, like a Phoenix

Trapped,
like a phoenix,
a small boy flares into a small man.

A small man,
sitting in the dark,
making scrapbook photo albums
of the small boy.

Birthday cake, baby clothes, baseball caps,
kindergarten, middle school, limo ride on prom night.
Brother home from college, a brace of smiles, newfound open conversation.

Seeing him off
for the return to school.

The phone call.

The funeral.

Twenty years later,
a small man
lets fall a phoenix tear
onto the page.

Another phoenixflare erupts
in its charred cage--
a solitary existence extinguished and reborn,
in the glowing smolderstench
of ashes,
lighting the too-near horizon
day after day,

as a decades-gone brother
wonders why he hadn't told him more often
to be strong.