from Deaf Republic: 13. For My Brother, Tony

Love cities , this is what my brother taught me as he cut soldiers’ hair, then tidied tomatoes watching Sonya and I dance on a soapy floor— I open the window, say in a low voice, my brother. The voice I do not hear when I speak to myself is the clearest voice. But the sky was all around us once. We played chess with empty matchboxes, he wrote love letters to my wife