Jim and Dan: The 2nd Anniversary of Their Deaths

My brothers live in photo albums
They wear Red Sox shirts
and eat watermelon in summer

They go to casinos
and hit the jackpot
Sing karaoke
and drink beer when they want to

From exotic places by the ocean
they watch girls in bikinis on the beach
Or go out to concerts and baseball games
and watch the weather channel on TV

My brothers live like postcards now
I write, “I wish you were still here”
on the back of each one

No stamps
No addresses
Their eyes don’t blink

They wave perpetually
from the places they have been
or put their paper thin arms around me

They still have opinions
and loud Boston accents
It must be hard for them
to be so quiet

to live like rumors
and in snippets of dreams
that those who love them
write down and save

They live on paper now
like money that can’t be spent
And I am like a teenager with a pop star crush
who kisses their 8 x 10s

My brothers would laugh out loud
at how odd it is to be dead
staring endlessly out from their glossy prints
while I am staring in

(This poem is on the last page of The Jim and Dan Stories)

 

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