My Brother, Asleep

Peace lily, arrowhead, aloe—

the last time you went to rehab

all your houseplants died. Absence parched

the heart of your terra-cotta pots.

Through the keyhole, I watched you eat

your weight in pills again. Corkscrew

yourself to sleep in someone’s burnout

pillow fort. On your knees

for those numbing Nordic gods—

Vicodin, Ativan, Tylox. I believed

you hadn’t graduated

to needles again. But you lay

on your side all day. An overdose

can look like the world’s

deepest sleep. Once, I saw the secret

rose bed you kept hidden

between your toes. You pushed

perennial seeds into that burned soil.

I slept with you back-to-back.

I dreamed that you woke up,

you handed me a bouquet.