I Have a Method of Letting Go

Asthmatic child in a house full of smokers, I crawled once
under toxic clouds to find my mother

I was so brave I almost died, or desperate

I wanted her more than breath
I was so small & she could sing
anything alive, almost

She didn’t really know, doesn’t know now—

She is familiar with duty & made me so
I can’t live on that loss

In 1977 a bullet turned my brother into dust
His 18 years here, an invisible talisman we hold in our callous living

Sometimes I think my mother smoked to pretend to breathe him in