Brother
Not able to breathe
not wanting to die so soon
Your fear kissed me.

The blow of death hits.
The strike unravels me.
My understandable sputtering lostness
takes its own form.

You, ominous echo of death,
have numbed me.
You sit on me like a giant boulder
I cannot escape.

My friends are dying
and I am driving through a lush spring forest.
My friends are dying
and I am broken open to living.

A stroke unravels my father’s life.
He cannot work, speak, or live independently.
Within weeks he loses his wife.
And then he loses his home.
He rages, he grieves, he withdraws.