We bury it in the backyard:
Behind the hydrangeas,
The flowers all crumpled up like brown tissue paper
and the creek, carrying old petals
through the stones like a maze.
There's an old shoebox, sealed tightly.
My brother digs, with a shovel much too heavy,
into the soft ground, sending dirt flying
out of the earth like fireworks.

I never held it.
One eye washed a milky white,
It refused my touch, biting my fingers,
two beads of scarlet on ivory.

I open the shoebox over the pit
and dump the remains in the hole,
Turning the other way as I do so.
My brother cries and I console him.
But to myself:
bones, blood, and skin.
All it ever was.

As we say our goodbyes,
The funeral commencing,
I can feel myself watching from far away.
Saying words, their meaning
swept away in the breeze.
my brother buries his face in my shirt,
And I hold him, not wanting to let go.

I turn to leave.
Halfway across the yard I look back,
He's a little patch of red T-shirt among the greenery.
Kneeled in front of the stream,
watching,
as the jagged rocks soften with the current.