She could have meant the light that falls
in the west, or a bird catapulting himself east
when she told me the story of a boy
leaving me for the empty sky. The night
she asked where babies come from, I told her
the truth: how they come to find bodies
inside our bodies, how they bubble
out of fat and shed their mother’s skin. Some
only visit—like sun spokes through a rainbow,
temporary, too weary to make the trip.
She might have meant we are all brothers
in this life. The dying light, the innocent bird.
I could have said, No, I've never met that soul,
just heard his name in my sleep. But I didn't
correct my daughter when she said, My brother
goes up there, motioning her hands
into a piece of ribbon unfurling up
and up above us, then floating away
like a balloon, buoyant, bodiless.
