What a pain you were, Little Brother. [Not.]  No
help that you went uneasy into Night.  No  
note,  nothing.   All the way across the country
so long.  Student of yours  said 'Dr. D'  loved
Post-its.   Could have left one.   Tears ruined,
could have dried it in the microwave, maybe.  
Used it to fill a little of the hole my heart turned
into.  Time will come, people said, when memory
comforts.   You can stop pretending he's yelling
Gotcha!   Wink/grin.  Little Huck Finn, little Robert
deNiro cock-o'the-walk.  (Genius had lashes to die
for, the student sighed.).  I watch you saunter to
the fridge, grab a bottle of milk, guzzle it to the last
drop.  I watch it run down the midnight shadow
darkening your wickedly handsome chin, then river
onto a tee says Ph.D. will shovel B.S. for food.
Ain' goin'  nowhere, you country between Olympics-
qualifying burps.  Reality hits mid-laugh.  Just the two  
of us, you know?   Huddling together, praying to not
see and hear.  One wouldn't end up dead.  Separated,
daddy went and let her have us.  Huddles increased.
Took our fingers out of our ears, ricocheting ashtrays
exploded like bombs.   Foxhole buddy dies, you do.
Keep walking, is all.  Playing dodge ball with guilt.  
Didn't do enough.  Did was wrong.  Being left piles
resentment eats like it has a tapeworm.  Didn't deserve
you! Anyone who would let a parent stripe a little-boy
back  and scrawny little-boy limbs until blood runs
deserves to be punished.  [But not this.]  That last  
time, I fought her off of you.  For once.  You saw
your chance and took off on that rusted bike
the landlady shoved under the side porch.  I see
your knobby little-boy knees. . .scars you got being
a daredevil. . .red where you'd scratched mosquito
bites.  Got infected, of cours--. . .you left me!  
Was it that we argued?  ALways take the biggest
piece/tear the paper/ splash mud/put the blame on me.
Liar!  Liar!  And don't come back!!  But we laughed
'til our sides split. didn't we?   Hour in our teens
when air guitar-accompanied duets competed with
the racket from a lemon you blackmailed from mom.
Belonged to a farmer hauled pigs.  Pfew!  Man
had wired the clutch with a 'minna-bucket han'le.'  
You had to stop at intersections and get out and tug
on the wire.  Bucket o' bolts decided the tar mid-road
was jump rope.  Get off 66!   You resurfaced that time.  
Had showed up at daddy and The Barfly's in Podunk.
Shock when you had him drive you up.   NOT staying
over, you growled.  No room anyway. See  you  now.  
Tall, deceptively thin, black brow bridge above over
hawk nose.   Shadowed chin drips blue john.  Grin
sassier now.  More deNiro than Huck.  Bro-?   Bro--??