Or maybe
somehow
join him.
WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN
we can usually look up and see
the moon, big and bright,
shining over us.
That always made me feel better.
Like there’s something up there
beaming down on us in the dark.
But the day before yesterday, when
Shawn
died,
the moon was off.
Somebody told me once a month
the moon blacks out
and becomes new
and the next night be back
to normal.
I’ll tell you one thing,
the moon is lucky it’s not down here
where nothing
is ever
new.
I STOOD THERE,
mouth clenched
tight enough to grind my
teeth down to dust,
and looked at Shawn
lying there like a piece
of furniture left outside,
like a stained-up couch
draped in a gold chain.
Them fuckers ain’t even
snatch it.
RANDOM THOUGHT
Blood soaking into a
T-shirt, blue jeans, and boots
looks a lot like chocolate syrup
when the glow from the streetlights hit it.
But I know ain’t
nothing sweet about blood.
I know it ain’t like chocolate syrup
at all.
IN HIS HAND,
a corner-store
plastic bag
white with
red letters
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
HAVE A NICE DAY
IN THAT BAG,
special soap
for my mother’s
eczema.
I’ve seen her
scratch until it
bleeds.
Pick at the pus
bubbles and flaky
scales.
Curse the invisible
thing trying to eat
her.
MAYBE THERE’S SOMETHING INVISIBLE
trying
to eat
all of
us as
if we
are beef.
BEEF
gets passed down like name-brand
T-shirts around here. Always too big.
Never ironed out.
gets inherited like a trunk of fool’s
gold or a treasure map leading
to nowhere.
came knocking on my brother’s life,
kicked the damn door down and took
everything except his gold chain.
THEN THE YELLOW TAPE
that says DO NOT CROSS
gets put up, and there’s nothing
left to do but go home.
That tape lets people know
that this is a murder scene,
as if we ain’t already know that.
The crowd backs its way into
buildings and down blocks
until nothing is left but the tape.
Shawn was zipped into a bag
and rolled away, his blood added
to the pavement galaxy of
bubblegum stars. The tape
framed it like it was art. And the next
day, kids would play mummy with it.
BACK ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR
I locked myself in my room and put
a pillow over my head to muffle
the sound of my mom’s mourning.
She sat in the kitchen, sobbing
into her palms, which she peeled
away only to lift glass to mouth.
With each sip came a brief
silence, and with each brief
silence I snuck in a breath.
I FELT LIKE CRYING,
which felt like
another person
trapped behind my face
tiny fists punching
the backs of my eyes
feet kicking
my throat at the spot
where the swallow
starts.
Stay put, I whispered to him.
Stay strong, I whispered to me.
Because crying
is against
The
Rules.
THE RULES
NO. 1: CRYING
Don’t.
No matter what.
Don’t.
NO. 2: SNITCHING
Don’t.
No matter what.
Don’t.
NO. 3: REVENGE
If someone you love
gets killed,
find the person
who killed
them and
kill them.
THE INVENTION OF THE RULES
ain’t come from my
brother,
his friends,
my dad,
my uncle,
the guys outside,
the hustlers and shooters,
and definitely not from
me.
ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES
They weren’t meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken
to follow.
OUR BEDROOM: A SQUARE, YELLOWY PAINT
Two beds:
one to the left of the door,
one to the right.
Two dressers:
one in front of the bed to the left of the door,
one in front of the bed to the right.
In the middle, a small TV.
Shawn’s side was the left:
perfect, almost.
Mine, the right:
pigsty, mostly.
Shawn’s wall had:
a poster of Tupac,
a poster of Biggie.
My wall had:
an anagram I wrote in messed-up scribble
with a pencil in case Mom made me
erase it:
SCARE = CARES.
ANAGRAM
is when you take a word
and rearrange the letters
to make another word.
And sometimes the words
are still somehow connected
ex: CANOE = OCEAN.
Same letters,
different words,
somehow still make
sense together,
like brothers.
THE MIDDLE DRAWER
was the only thing ever out of place
on Shawn’s side of the room,
like a random, jagged tooth
in a perfect mouth,
jammed tight between the
top drawer of shirts
folded into neat rectangles
stacked like project floors,
and the bottom drawer of socks
and underwear.
Off track. Stuck. Forced in at an angle.
Seemed like the middle drawer
was jacked up on purpose
to keep me and Mom out
and Shawn’s gun in.
I WON’T PRETEND THAT SHAWN
was the kind of guy
who was home by curfew.
The kind of guy
who called and checked in
about where he was,
who he was with,
what he was doing.
He wasn’t.
Not after eighteen,
which was when our mother
took her hands off him,
pressed them together, and
began to pray
that he wouldn’t go to jail
that he wouldn’t get Leticia pregnant
that he wouldn’t die.