Changes in Perspective

I wish you were dead
my ten-year-old self screamed
at my six years older than I
big brother who stood
there smirking at me
knowing I was in big trouble.
Just once I wanted
to catch him doing something wrong.

Eavesdropping a private
conversation between
my brother and my folks
when he almost got
kicked out of college.
Next semester I got straight As.
He wasn't perfect.
I gloated for days.

He did lighting for J. Geils Band.
At a concert in Seaside Heights, NJ
we 'never saw' each other
passing a joint around on the lighting platform.
He drove me home that night
slalomming the yellow lines
on the Garden State Parkway
Best night ever.

He cried in my arms
after our parents had passed.
Thanked me for handling everything.
Sent him copies of a book series
I wrote about suicide,
gays, and transgender people.
He said I nailed it. Then he said
his little sister was very cool.

He had his issues, battled drugs
and alcohol. Covid decimated him:
his work closed down--for the first time
in fifty years he wasn't working.
He had no idea what to do.
He died of a heart attack in January.
No drug or alcohol in his system.
I so wish he were still here.



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