Doug Ramspeck

after his brother died     the boy imagined
that there was a slowness to the shadows

crossing the yard outside his bedroom window
& a vague impatience to the moonlight

& once he dreamed that his brother
was a snakeskin clinging to a wire fence

& that the hours showed their ribs
like a coyote trotting low slung & forgetful

across a dusk field     & once his brother
had lifted a green snake by the tail

& had held it wriggling before him
like a living occultation     & often

they had walked down to study together
the muddy passage of the river     to study

in winter the ice that made of the river’s skin
something as hard & unforgiving as stone

but now the boy’s brother is a screech owl
in the night    is the decomposing sound

of rain against the roof     & always
when the boy wakes in the morning 

he imagines his brother with his eyes closed
& holding his breath inside the grave