John My Brother

John My Brother For years I raged against your sensitivity Dismissing your poetry as naïveté While I intentionally closed my mind to the possibility You had seen something I had yet to see I guess I needed to maintain my deniability That I had learned the truth you taught me John My Father My earliest memory is of weeping and singing As I’m pulled along by the hand through the seething mass I’m afraid and I don’t understand A woman brushes my thick dark hair from my forehead and tells me I’m so beautiful I could be a girl Why is everyone so sad He was too young he was so beautiful he taught us all we need to know Here I’m raised up to great fire John My Lover I’ve been long to get to where you were She saw your beauty and I denied it I wore the ugliness of jealousy You’d be an old man now my Father’s age In the mind of youth I see You were the fullness of beauty and humanity And I still long for you to love me February 19, 2022