Because I could not look you in the face
I used a macrolens and photographed your toes.
Our mother pretended you were like any of us
only lazy and trying to abuse her patience.
My sister who lived through worse she says
says you were diagnosed borderline paranoid
schizophrenic. At school they said you were
emotionally disturbed. The drill at home was we
ridiculed you, looked down our noses, ignored you.
my father pinned you down once in the kitchen,
a commotion of brussel sprouts and grunts.
Our father who as I was setting the table,
I lofted forksspoonsknives off a placemat trampoline
picked them off the floor and hit him again
but he wouldn't make a sound of his own at all.
He's a nice man my mother said, but
I sat in a chair and listened for hours. You
were downstairs yelling or playing your drums.