Annette Covrigaru - A Poem

I am only my brother’s brother in the mirror


when the boxer waistband squeezes, flesh

spooling, hips hugging in a queer embrace,

and when we embrace our wounds are

symphonies that beat so wild we beat our-

selves. There are imprints of what-ifs on your

throat, a softball to the larynx and the near death of

your voice, oh how I hang on those vibrations, a

discography of Adam Sandler movie quotes,

Outkast’s “Idlewood Blue (Don’tchu Worry

‘Bout Me),” iridescent laughter, sound reasoning.

Three days before top surgery you ask that I

suffocate a little longer, text a tautology of fore-

warnings; 

                                    very young               life

changing.        can’t reverse  

                                                                If you

waited                                         the future



                        new         surgery      will get

better over time    

I marvel at us boys and all the eulogies

we’ve recited for our selves, how we borrow

each other’s lines without even knowing.

On a flight home to New York from visiting

Dad, with nobody in the middle seat, we share

vacant memories from our Y2K adolescence,

the void of then and now, and only then do I see

a reflection. After my surgery, waking from an

anesthetic smog, I ask for you, your hand.

And then, my brother, you say I understand.