by John Blair

    A youngest brother turns seventeen with a click as good as a roar，

    finds the door and is gone.

    You listen for that small sound， hear a memory.

    The air-raid sirens howled of summer tornadoes¹， the sound

    thrown back against the scattered² thumbs

    of grain silos and the open Oklahoma plains

    like the warning wail³ of insects.

    Repudiation⁴ is fast like a whirlwind.

    Only children don't know that all you live is leaving.

    Yes， the first knowledge that counts is that everything stops.

    Even in the bible-belt， second comings are promises

    you never really believed；

    so you turn and walk into the embrace of the world

    as you would to a woman， an arrant⁵

    an orphic movement as shocking as the subtle

    animal pulse of a flower opening， palm up.

    We are all so helpless.

    I can look at my wife's full form now

    and hope for children，

    picture her figured by the weight of babies.

    Only， it's still so much like trying to find something

    once lost. My brother felt the fullness of his years， the pull

    in the gut⁶ that's almost sickness. His white

    smooth face is gone into living and fierce illusion，

    a journey dissolute and as immutable⁷

    as the whining⁸ heat of summer.

    Soon enough， too soon， momentum⁹ just isn't enough.

    Our tragedy is to live in a world

    that doesn't invite us back.

    We slow， find ourselves sitting in a room that shifts so slightly

    we can only imagine the difference.

    I want to tell him to listen.

    I want to tell him what it is to crave¹⁰ darkness，

    to want to crawl headfirst into a dirt-warm womb

    to sleep， to wait seventeen years，

    to emerge again.

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