Some nights they’d bang out the metal cannister of rolled-
up screen and cart out the magically upright projector case
with the hinged clasps, and play, after many gasps
of exasperation,
home movies.
Time seemed to tick with remorseful determination
on the rebound, tsk-tsking as the film
unwound, chittering
in reverse,
and always at the tail of what should have been
a family movie (meaning including me),
my brother, stepped awkwardly
towards us, with a twist of crepe paper
at his fist, in a circle of kids that conspicuously did not hold
his little sister.
How it blistered–my brother who didn’t even like
crepe paper,
my brother who walked
when he should
have danced,
my brother whose smirk seemed almost a smile
in the camera’s swerve,
as Mayday caught his crewcut
in its sun’s bristling
smile.
How strange that in the changes
of age, I now would happily give my brother
all the May dances
in the world
(having felt
the fall–)
and give him too
so many other mays: may
you be happy. May
you be free. May
all beings be happy
and free–
and how is it, that honestly.
I don’t think enough of all
these mays
nor of all
my true brothers
in this world
of hinged rewind,
clasped metal.
************************************
Final poem for this April 2016, for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads to write of maypoles.
I want to thank again Kerry O’ Connor and all the prompters and poets at Real Toads who have made this such a sustaining month for me. And all readers and commenters! Thanks so very much.
Photo above is by Meredith Martin.
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