By Evan Schaeffer
I was the older brother
nine to his seven
Since our bickering
was constant
I’m not surprised, now,
that I can’t recall a precipitating cause
for that Sunday morning
sometime after eggs and bacon
but before church
when he picked up dad’s hammer
and, lifting it first above his head,
launched it
at full strength
directly at my face
from a distance of five feet
Seen in one light–
for example, at Thanksgiving dinner,
after the turkey and the wine–
this anecdote can seem almost
comic, and,
if told correctly,
nearly always has the capacity
to make someone laugh
But that’s only because
my brother missed
When I’m alone and
there’s no laughter
I recognize
how different our lives
might be today
had my scrawny brother
had better aim
Evan, good poem, and I could almost have written it myself. When I was maybe ten years old, I had an argument with a girl named Kathy Sepkovic, maybe two years older than me. She was sitting on a swingset probably thirty feet from me, and I picked up a flat rock and threw it at her as hard as I could. It hit the chain of the swing maybe five inches from her head. As hard as I could throw back then, I still shudder to think what would have happened had that stone found its mark.
Anyway, nice poem. Always interesting to think how one event can change our lives …