My Brother's Hat
And sometimes I am my brother
as I lift my chin to signal "No"
the way he learned to do in Turkey,
and sometimes when I slip my foot
into a shoe I think of the
red scorpions in the jungle
and of the giant rats under the cot
that kept falling apart in Paraguay
and of the piranhas.
And sometimes I dream in Spanish
or Guarani, but never in French because
I know enough to know better,
and I do not buy anything except for
parsley and scallions and other
things I need to make tabouli,
and also the ingredients
for the most delicious (and healthy)
cookies in the world,
and I am he in how I remember
another side of the story, the one
that I never tell, the part
I couldn't see, and, circling the Lake,
wondering about the hawk
who swooped down and took his hat,
I am he (days later) when it appears
in the branches of a tree, and there
I am, looking up at my hat.
as I lift my chin to signal "No"
the way he learned to do in Turkey,
and sometimes when I slip my foot
into a shoe I think of the
red scorpions in the jungle
and of the giant rats under the cot
that kept falling apart in Paraguay
and of the piranhas.
And sometimes I dream in Spanish
or Guarani, but never in French because
I know enough to know better,
and I do not buy anything except for
parsley and scallions and other
things I need to make tabouli,
and also the ingredients
for the most delicious (and healthy)
cookies in the world,
and I am he in how I remember
another side of the story, the one
that I never tell, the part
I couldn't see, and, circling the Lake,
wondering about the hawk
who swooped down and took his hat,
I am he (days later) when it appears
in the branches of a tree, and there
I am, looking up at my hat.
Page(s) 54
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