Breno

Breno,

The heat of my skin makes the black ink run in terror of my thinking of you in such a way

that we are children again.

Summer hurts me, winter riots against me. The brown spots on my skin, the same

number of nose freckles you had at thirteen. Before time made you take yourself.

I wrote a page, emotions stinging my lungs, Stopping and coughing in systematic

repulsion of my own heart and summer influenza.

Your mother calls, you cradling the phone to your shoulder, staring at me then screaming

with your eyes,

“‘Not one page, don’t ever stop at one page.”

Breno, maybe it was you who stopped at one page.

Maybe it was you who had a vision a dream, a fight you wanted so badly.

Breno, I only have one mental photograph of you, the yellow boxcar, your mother

wailing, the pulled lumps of bloodied bone and hair, and your attempts to jump into the train.