Before him, I had Mom all to myself.
With the hard-wired hubris of the princely firstborn,
I though that would never change.
A baby sister could have been my private kewpie doll,
but this blue bundle looked like big trouble.
Sometimes at night, I’d reach through the bars of his crib,
and pinch him till he cried and woke the whole house.
Now we have a Connecticut to Colorado call
almost every day, doing variations on the same topic:
raising the mundane to a daily sacrament,
how it would be to be content with just a little-
Monday night football, dinner at the in-laws, then
a comforting piece of the old familiar ass.
We’re united in awe of the ordinary.
My brother can cozy up to almost anyone,
dying to find out what they know, where they’ve been,
and they’re more than happy to tell him.
He’s always been the nice one.