hometown 1993

think of it; the landscape

potted as if by war, think of

the weeds, the boarded buildings,

the slivers of window abandoned

in the streets, and behind one

glass, my little brother, dying.

think of how he must have

bounded into our mothers arms,

held hard to our fathers swollen hand,

never looking back, glad to be gone

from the contempt, the terrible night

of buffalo.