I had no idea that the gate I would step through 
to finally enter this world 

would be the space my brother’s body made. He was 
a little taller than me: a young man 

but grown, himself by then, 
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet, 

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold 
and running water. 

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me. 
And I’d say, What? 

And he’d say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich. 
And I’d say, What? 

And he’d say, This, sort of looking around. 

My parents took me to Red Lobster to tell me they were getting a
divorce. Parents always take you to Red Lobster when they need to
tell you something awful and important, like failure. They figure if
they’re going to ruin a restaurant for you, it should be somewhere
lame, like Red Lobster or Olive Garden. We went to Red Lobster.
They couldn’t bring themselves to say anything. I was confused. My
brother, visiting, offered to tell me. He told me. I didn’t take it well.
To calm me down, he tried to read “Macavity: The Mystery Cat” to
me while I was throwing things. He ruined it. We were supposed to
ruin Red Lobster. I tried to break a toy school bus that he had given
me but it was too well made and solid wood so I gave up. It’s not
that I don’t want to be your mom, it’s that I don’t want to be anyone’s
mom. You can call me Phyllis and we can work on being friends. When I get back. My father hired a housekeeper. She wasn’t a good cook but she made a lot of Mexican food, which I liked. The first time
she made albondigas, my father thought it was matzo ball soup
made by a crazy person. He accused her of being a crazy person.
He raised his voice and gripped the edge of the table to keep his
hands down, so that was ruined for me as well. She should have left
but she didn’t, she stuck around until my future stepmother entered
the competition for the slot in the kitchen and won. They took me
to Red Lobster to let me know they were getting married. I had
popcorn shrimp and nodded along. My mother sent me a postcard
with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, telling me how great things were.
It had domestic postage.

^{for Kojo}

There is the fickle shadow, the dialect 
of my body; me standing before myself—  
as if the framing of this ordinary mirror,  
is the small light of a window, 
and see this naked man, no longer shy,  
move me with the muscle 
of thighs and the flattery of shoulders—  
this is a kind of art; perhaps 
the only art there is, my body 
still able to seduce me to tenderness.

My calculus of pleasure or contentment 
is the way my older self, 
that brother of mine who faced 
the wars, four years ahead, 
the blasted sight, the kidneys’ 
decay, the atrophy of bone in his 
spine. To think I found comfort  
in the slow calculation. He was 
broken long before, and I have survived 
another curse. This is as ugly 
as all love can be. And, so, I give 
thanks for this body walking 
towards the trees, away from me 
the machine of me, my backside 
a revelation.