A cotton mouthed sky my brother and I
cut from the same yard of grass,
the country god made for us
hard scrabbled
frustrated with fusion, soft and easy,
every object of our affection in-between,
no one left I wish to talk to,
a click of feathers and hollow bones,
and I am not among the living
as I wish to be nor among the dead.
It’s never cold enough outside.
A corpse takes the place of a corpse.
Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks. His latest one is Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Book on Blogs, 2012).