Late to the Search Party

i.

In the Sonoran Desert, my brother hands me a revolver. In place of tenderness
he tells me to kill a woodpecker. It’s injured, on its back like a sunbather
thrashing in a gravel bed.
                                                My brother stands behind me—

arms around mine like a mini golf date. Our hands, a nesting
doll with an exploding heart.                                                  A crowd of saguaros

                                                         turn their heads to witness.

They multiply in my periphery, hold their hands up
like I’m a cop. I’m crying. I can feel
the trigger even now.                          Death’s first lesson: I am always


in the present tense. I see the target. My brother’s one closed eye 
plus mine become a pair
                                                          wide open.
On my knees, I make a pit of sun
hot sand, bury the bird, then the bullet
                                                                   like the seeds of a flower
I’m scared will someday grow.

ii.

Five years before disappearing, my brother was a florist.

No one believed his hands—knuckles split open
from knife fights, sutured shut at the kitchen table
by our neighbor, the nurse—might grip, peacefully,
a fistful of tulips, hyacinth, baby’s breath.

We called his halfway house church.
A crucifix above each bed, door, window. Jesus suffered
on every surface. No room for doubt. 

The front lawn was patchy as a checkers board. My brother dreamed
of emeralds in a pile of tiger’s eye. He executed

every stage of grief in a Home Depot aisle, saved the money, bought
a sprinkler to cure the disease.
                                                       Its healing streams like harp strings

slackening in the sun.

iii.

The gnats are dozing on my bedroom ceiling. Little silhouettes crouching
in a field of eggshells. In the haze before sleep, I convince myself 

they’re praying for me

to turn the lamp back on. I’m dimly lit by the alarm clock—

from way up there, I’m the centerpiece

of their modest Sistine Chapel. Hairy-chested god, sprawling
across a wrinkled duvet. In darkness, I hear only their faraway hum, soft
as a vending machine. I dream

of long-stemmed marigolds
                                                 snaking below
                                                 a circle of birds.

iv.

In the city of my suffering, I am both dreamer and architect.
I built, for you, a suburb of worship, brother.

The statues I erected look less like you each year,
all smothered in memory’s patina.

It’s spring now. Here I am, late
to the search party. Uncertain feet

behind my flashlight’s beam.
I’m the one to find you.

                                                  I don’t feel grief.

The flashlight aimed at your body

projects a shadow across the mountainside.
          The shadow is the shape
                                                        of my relief.