Letter to a Lost Brother
Hearing the news, I stopped cold,
barely dared to breathe in your absence
They shipped you off to be with your brothers,
just eighteen,
in the unknown land of Kandahar
where you would learn to fight
someone else’s battle
Bounded by trust you found new people,
away from your family,
away from my own
Three years later
you returned to scarf down
21st birthday barbeque
But we were celebrating so much more
than another year come and gone
We reveled in your blessed life
that we could see with our own eyes,
and touch with the hands of family
that trembled with thoughts of what could’ve been
Your laugh echoed
through that smokehouse scene
and weights were lifted off the shoulders
of everyone who held the burden
of your departure
and the hands of your mother
every day you were gone.
But you were home;
we could breathe in your safety
At least for that next week
before the news came of a battle lost
between a tree
and your car
Now six feet under
you lie frozen,
forever dressed in army greens
I was ten years old when I lost you to new brothers
and that uniform,
thirteen when you were lost to a rainy night
and splintered wood
and seventeen when I realized
though you are gone,
I haven’t lost you at all.