Already late, miles away, we find an abandoned couch
camouflaged by dead leaves, and my little brother
belly-flops onto it, lies there babbling at me
as the leaves shiver in the wind running
and tree trunks dim to silhouettes seeming taller
now, faceless with bark. A woodpecker
invisible somewhere in the branches
drumming like regret. My brother’s saying not yet,
but I’m saying we’ve got to go or the light
will strand us, saying It’s getting colder. I’ll make you
a snack. I’m saying c’mon, stupid,
gutterslut, scrub, c’mon, saying so many things I forget
what I’ve already said and say them again. Just
a little longer, he says, burying his face
in the cushion’s cracked gray above the ground rattling
leaf shreds, the dirt darkening
blacker black. I can’t go back there,
he might’ve said—but by then I’d already left.
