---

​we lean on that doorframe marked with penciled lines,
roll back our sleeves, and dredge up old times:

winter nights by the glow of the TV
as it crackled like a saucepan,
making sound effects for six-inch
figurines damned to die for our sins;

fingers stained with blackberry blood
and sidewalk chalk; drafting concoctions
of coffee and cereal milk to pour on slugs;
laughing at night when sleep wouldn’t come.

then came the spats, the feuds; bruises
still tender from thoughtless words,
stomachs sick from the poison pride brewed.
we shift our positions, revealing the wood
​
notched by markings of brothers who grew--
how we grew and grew and grew.