Gabriel Hathaway Reflection

Gabriel Hathaway

Reflection

Blurry lights streak, an astigmatism, and inebriation from shallow glasses as shadow gain ground, I walk boots thump puddle splashin’— humming…humming, what’s that song? Oh—I’ve forgotten.

Like a childhood song or friend make-believe now on the other side of a foggy mirror—Oh brothers, do you remember our childhood the same? Our raving neurotic sister, all the pets, or even our parent’s divorce.

Each of us four years apart, a world it feels. The eldest, Paul, did you know what mother did or why we packed our bags? Zack, how did you sleep when mom and her second husband fought so loudly? Cameron, we shared a bed or a room most the time, is your memory the same? Did you alltake the time to memorize the floor plans of every house we lived in like I did?

It is all so different now, and even as I

write this goose bumps spring up along my arm. We’ve all grown and moved, left things unspoken. There’s a terrible aching, and my fingers have trouble wrapping themselves around this pen as I write you. Brothers, how do our feelings differ? I ask but don’t expect an answer, we were never ones to take sides.

RaePeter

Four little lines is all they needed to take from Your corpse

as if all Your time here was nothing more than 30 letters and some numbers

they don’t care if You loved shakespeare or laughed when things got hard

they don’t care to know Your story or who will love You when You’re gone

Your name Your number Your blood-type and preferred religion is all they need to know when counting up the corpses

and now you’re gone and all that’s left are these four little lines that hang around my neck

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