Fane
still alive for who you love
These things did not happen in words. Slowly, soundlessly they seeped into the mud, beneath the floorboards and the poppy flowers. Until morning broke and you couldn’t fit your filthy little tongue around the idea.
But somewhere between chapel and the winter solstice, you’d see one brother lose his lucky rabbit’s foot and the other lose his head. And all at once, you’d remember. The notion would come rushing back to you like a goddamn hungry mutt. The way his tips of his toes, all skinny and pruned, should have tingled against yours. How he cupped the cloudy water in his hands over and over again only to let it leak through the cracks between his fingers. The itching in your nose and the noise that he made, almost shrill enough to be a laugh, when you said you couldn’t feel your legs.
He drowned himself in a milk bath. You could still taste the honey on his skin.
But somewhere between chapel and the winter solstice, you’d see one brother lose his lucky rabbit’s foot and the other lose his head. And all at once, you’d remember. The notion would come rushing back to you like a goddamn hungry mutt. The way his tips of his toes, all skinny and pruned, should have tingled against yours. How he cupped the cloudy water in his hands over and over again only to let it leak through the cracks between his fingers. The itching in your nose and the noise that he made, almost shrill enough to be a laugh, when you said you couldn’t feel your legs.
He drowned himself in a milk bath. You could still taste the honey on his skin.
♠ ♠ ♠
159 words