The Colony

He leaped from the branch with me
on his back, while I squealed in delight.
That water was bathtub-warm,
but I didn’t care as long as he was there
to hold me tight.

He smoked in the truck,
“Don’t tell your mother.”
I asked him what it was like.
He said it was like a pacifier, with a
glowing ember on the tip.

It was fresh to me, but familiar somehow,
at fifteen, to sit on the porch and sneak that
cigarette. If only my brother
hadn’t come outside,
maybe I wouldn’t have shared it.

He had prostate cancer at forty,
though by then we were all smoking.
Now, my nieces and nephews are asthmatic,
my brother has a pack-a-day habit,
and who is there to blame
but myself?

I see that lake now, the banks all dried up,
the tree, long ago cut down, and
McMansions lining the lakefront.

We should have stayed in Lewisville,
could have swam away that Summer.
Now, we’re 1800 miles apart
and daddy is too weak from chemo to visit.