When we dream of those who are gone,
Does that mean they have returned
To live again?

If so, my dad must be twenty;
My mother ten.
They have been gone that long.

Today, my dad drifts from track to track
From Santa Anita to Del Mar to Saratoga and Churchill Downs
And there are women, lots of women.
Sometimes, we cross paths.
His eyes are full of sunshine and laughter.
He learned his lesson and gave up the Camels.
He stays away from the bottle too.
It seems he learned something from his last life.

My mother is still a lonely child like
All her other reincarnations.
She hasn’t learned to leave guilt and loneliness behind.
Turning to God once again for answers
To explain whatever haunts her.
Although my wife and stepdaughter never met my mother before her death,
I’m sure they know her today as a quiet, bookish child.

As a teen, my older brother cut school,
lied and cheated while fighting mom, dad and his teachers every step.
Once, he cussed out my mom using the “F” word
When she wouldn’t give him money.
For that, my Golden Gloves trained dad
Socked him on the jaw knocking him flat.

Then there was that time my brother, The Horse, came home bloody
With a cracked skull
After a rumble as a Hell's Angel with another biker gang.
I was seven.
And prayed to the Catholic Christ
Hanging on the wall Cross.

In marriage, The Horse gave birth to future illiterates and drug dealers.
Although his oldest son turned out okay,
His first daughter went to jail when she was caught with her boyfriend,
After he escaped from prison
And landed on the FBIs top-ten most wanted list.

Even given chances to educate himself and turn his life around,
The Horse kept going back to the bottle.
He skin popped heron and snorted cocaine
Spending fifteen years in the slammer for drunk driving and robbery.
The Horse often cheated on his wife and bragged about it.

Even with all those marks against him,
I still loved my black sheep, half brother.
I think about The Horse often when I’m awake,
but he’s never in my dreams.

The Horse must be locked up in some cosmic isolation
We think of as hell.
How can anyone blame God for keeping him there?