Forget-Me-Not

My brother is dying and I am not. I drag him behind me like a spiritless balloon, like the first robot, like the last clown-car clown, his ridiculous Fiat, his lot to be crushed, left for dead, covered in snot, his puffy hands, his outsized shoes, his flower pot, like Virgil Earp, Clanton-ganged, at the Not OK Corral, un-brothered, gutshot, like the night without sleep in Turandot. From the get-go I have always sought to know (what,what?) if this is all I’ve got, to show up in a vestibule, all bothered and hot, like silver-fingered Iscariot, like the smiling highwayman,tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, while all about me are consigned to slather and rot. I drink to my faith, to what I am not, to all who’ve come before me, every rutty Lancelot, every Huguenot, every hotsy-totsy hot to trot, every Dylan, besot, who doesn’t have the strength to get up and take another shot. I know my Morse, code blue,dot-dot-dot, dit-dit-dit, dot-dot-dot. I know what God hath wrought.