Death in Parentheses

He came home with his right leg made a bit shorter

but they didn’t notice. A landmine did it, he said

to himself, and I was the only one who heard him

because I followed him everywhere like a son.

He hobbled when no one was looking,

and I hobbled behind him.

When he plucked an iris, I plucked the one next to it,

and we thought of purple evening clouds.

When he killed a butterfly, he’d take off the wings first,

then crush it with his fingers and smell it.

I tried to catch one, but it flitted away.

He wanted to build a huge power plant

to keep us from disappearing. I nodded

and pointed out all the recent deaths, how quick they were,

tomatoes not as plump as they used to be,

the maple trees discolored, their branches

like veins with no fat around them.

All this, he decided, meant we needed new things.

But I disagreed on this: why new, why not

old me, I who have lived here for many years

even before he was born, but he didn’t listen.

Mosquitoes come and go,

full and happy. Outside the window, the plant

looms over the village. It looks prettier than I thought,

which makes me want to kiss it, but I know it will

burn my lips and I won’t be able to speak to anyone

with my charred mouth. I saw him

dressed up for a meeting, and they shouted,

blaming him for his empty head,

for wanting too much. The next time I saw him

he was in bed, old and delirious.

He opened his eyes, and held my hand

for the first time, and said, Don’t push yourself, come back

alive. He was buried in his ever-vanishing land,

and I flew off into my friendless life.