Published on 09 June 2012
My family
has a bad
habit of
killing
ourselves.
My mother
Slammed a smile onto her face
For so many years that it locked itself
I heard her say, once
“I need to laugh that way
at least once a year.”
She moved home, south
where it’s warm beneath the pine trees
My sister
broke down when she was cut off
At a stop sign in a parking lot
She tried so hard to shelve her childhood
That she forgot it was still there
dusting up and rusting away
She has a child now
And may dust those shelves in time
My brother
Drove the principal’s car into a lake
And got sent to juvenile
For two long years
He came back five inches taller
With some white stubble
And free entrance to the low security
mental institution in the local hospital
My father
Drank and drank and drank
All of the stars into his bones
until they filled his marrow
until he could walk on his reflection
in the night ocean
feet-bottoms touching
And me
I’ve written these stories
Until the horizon squalls over
And I remember
And my father can’t walk on water
And my mother loved her dogs
And my sister
is bringing something useful into the world
And I never had a brother
But it sure kills me to pretend.
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