Brandy Lien Worrall-Soriano

Outdoor heat lamps in a city that slows down in the cold months,
they keep my memory of him warm on what will always be
a chilly foggy mid-autumn anniversary. My memory
is imagined. I never met him—my older brother
who died when he was some hours old,
for no reason that anyone could tell me. He just did.

Someone I’ll never look up to but always to whom I’ll look
behind to make sure he’s still tagging along.
His name is Biblical, and I always pictured
him to look like
baby angel jesus in the nativity scene on the rickety stage
at our small Methodist church where our outhouses
were the latest technology we had at the time.

David or Matthew or David Matthew—

however whoever remembered his name, like grace said
at Christmas dinner before we dove in and destroyed the high caloric bounty.

Matthew is how I remember remembering him from the time I knew him
when Mammy introduced the two of us,
so she could explain why Mom is the way she is.
That’s how I remembered Matthew–and the other brother we weren’t supposed to talk about.

I grew up in a house with women who were damaged by males
and the memory and loss of them. That’s nothing unusual.
I can understand that. But then again, I really couldn’t
until I was damaged by one, and then lost another,
and you wonder what kind of sick fuck the Universe is sometimes.

But I’ll always go back to a prayer on this day, one that I’ve memorized as such:

“Dear Matthew, I’m your younger sister. Please don’t be mad at me because I lived.
I wish you had lived too. I’ll always be your sister, and you’ll always be my brother,
and our mother shall always be our mother. Amen.”

And I’d whisper the same prayer to my other brother we can’t talk about
sometime later, soon. Autumn is funny like that. The lamps–not warm enough.