Breaking News: Mass Grave Found Near…

Yesterday

I went to the Coroner’s Office.

They asked for a DNA sample,

and told me they found some unidentified bones.

Every time I hear that I rotate on the knife of hope, like a stuck orange.

I am home now, brother, dusting the plastic flowers around your photo, wetting them with tears.

The medical report says the sack of bones I signed for are “you.”

Too little. I empty them on the table. Catalogue them again:

a skull, a clavicle, three ribs, a shattered femur, a pile of metacarpi, and a dice roll of vertebrae.

How can these be a brother?

but the medical report confirms it is.

I put the bones back in the sack,

dust off my hands, blow the remainder from the table, hoist you on my back and leave.

On the bus I place you next to me and pay for two seats. (Yes, I’m paying this time.)

I’m old enough to carry you on my back and pay your fare.

I do not inform anyone what I’ve received.

I watch your wife and children pass by the couch where I’ve set you down.

I want one of them to open the sack,

to see you one last time,

but you’re stubborn to the bone.

Later, they wonder about the wet marks on the couch.

For an hour, I had arranged the wet bones in a makeshift coffin, trying to complete you.

Only the shiny nail heads knew that this was too little.