My brother leans over
in the cabin bedroom
that we shared once
a year and says to me
—now mind you
this is the brother I have
hated all my life—
he leans over the bunk bed.
Yes, he got the top.
He leans
into the springs
like he’s an old car
all 12 years
of him, and he
says to a boy half his age,
a boy tossing and fearing
outhouse snakes,
and the awful windy
silence, the calm of the desert
and the unfed
spring of the fear of Father
for still being awake
when the rest
of the sane world is not.
Now this brother leans over
and asks in the sweetest voice possible:
“Wanna buy some sleep?” In the darkness
I nod and, then, realizing years later
say, “Yes,” aloud and so he begins.
He gathers up a cocoon of sleep
in his hands and tucks in my feet,
my ankles, my legs, my torso
and then zips it up tightly under my chin
almost as if he loved me.
