For Those Who Learn To Sew Sorrow

Let me mend this for you, I say to Niece,
let me sew our sorrow–stitch at what we
are left with, let me teach you, where we place
our fingers next to sliver of needle.
Let me show you a woman’s strength, already
conjured forth from you at seven years old.
I see it, in your ghost cries for daddy,
in the way you hold counsel at brass urn.

I tell you, like Mother told me, when we
become blood pricked, we suck in the crimson
drop, take in the taste of metal to rough
nubbed tongue and continue, guiding fabric.
Our hands brown to desert, turn the ravaged
tender–our fingers winded memory

This selection comes from the book, Brother Bullet, available from University of Arizona Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Sarah Clark .

Remember This

When you were born, I peered at
you from our parents’ bed, on the

wide mattressed field you were
alone, blue blanketed, barely

any wisps of hair. I studied you there,
your slight squirms, the smallest penny

slit eyes. I held you and did not pinch
or squeeze. I carried you toward me.

When I was fourteen and you were ten,
and we were still shaped raw, soft enough

o squish between teeth and jaw. Our fleshy
limbs browned by summer sun. Too hot to

eat until nightfall, mother ordered at the
sandwich shop counter. We watched a man gazelle

over the counter. Robbery in progress. Mother
ducked! I ducked! But you stood static–transfixed

by the gleam of gun, your legs were steeled
in place, but I grabbed hold and pulled and pulled.

Remember how I pulled you in, toward me
Remember how I once kept you safe.

This selection comes from the book, Brother Bullet, available from University of Arizona Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Sarah Clark .

Some Boys

When Brother’s First Son asked me
where it happened, where his father could not out run

death, I tell him the truth, but feel heavy with the
weight of witness, a wild gun shot ricochets in my

throat. He wants to know if it happened in the back
yard where his father as a boy once raced behind orange,

and sweet lemon trees, scrambling over warped
fences to escape bb gun games. Shoulders shot by other boys.

Brother was a big target. Tiny bullets pierced summer
skin but they smiled at the gun play with those they called brother.

These easy pains heal clean. They are not the ones that mark
some boys. Boys that always carry those scars, even after

wounds are no longer circled red. Mother tells First Son not to
wear his hoodie over his head. Don’t walk to the corner store alone.

Be back before the street lights turn on, she says, just like she told
Brother as a boy. Are these the warnings Brother would have given his son,

knowing that sometimes it is not enough because some boys,
some brown boys are never just boys to some.

This selection comes from the book, Brother Bullet, available from University of Arizona Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Sarah Clark .

Those Who Speak to Trees Remember

Trees have ancestors, a lineage, a history. Father tells Brother and I
as he waters his hybrids.
Mother coos to citrus leaves and

reminds us of the canyon and desert
in us, the Indian and Mexican
of us, how we are grafted like our citrus trees

that drop grapefruits to roof, then tumble to ground,
their skin splits—and jeweled flesh glistens gold beneath
white membrane, tiny sour tears. Brother was once

afraid of those sounds, the way the yellow spheres
rolled from roof to ground. Splats of grapefruits made him
fear sleep in his own room. We used to climb past

the tangelo tree, past bright pebbled skin to reach
garage roof where we played war with neighborhood kids,
throwing dropped fruit at each other. In the lazy heat of summer,

we soured with sweat and dirt, licked trails of ripe juice from our hands.
Brother’s friends remember him and our trees, the sweetness of our lemons.
Now when his friends visit, even a year after his death,

they sit in the backyard of our parent’s house, drink beer, talk
to the orange trees and listen to falling globes of citrus. I listen to the rustle
of leaves, the way fruit sings of Brother, an echo in the wind.

This selection comes from the book, Brother Bullet, available from University of Arizona Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Sarah Clark .

Eclipse: Albuquerque 2012

Brother is my eclipse. The perfect
alignment, one body covering
another. I wish my body more fierce, a shield
to cover for Brother on Bullet night. My one great
regret eating at my brain and heart. Investigate this:
How do I walk around alive when there is all

of this consuming me? Can I name Bullet
moon or is death the moon? What is it that leaves
the stain of fire behind? Eclipse
glasses perch on my nose. Halo of orange. Halo of red. I try to see into the sky,
where Brother is said to be, even as the body
I knew as his was made into particles.
There was no moon on Bullet
night, but maybe that is only memory.
I remember the rain, the darkness,
my fear. The next day I saw no sun, I ate
the clouds, the dampness soaked into my boots.
The moon had nothing to cover, but we were
eclipsed.

Bullet or maybe moon left me with a stain of fire, my badge
of grief, follows me everywhere I go. Sometimes the blaze
is fury. Sometimes it is sorrow. I look to the sky and I see my heart
burning.

This selection comes from the book, Brother Bullet, available from University of Arizona Press.  Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Sarah Clark .