Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Matthew J. Andrews

Photography by Toby Mitchell

The question spills out
of the fracture of my mouth 
like juice from the cracked flesh
of a pomegranate,
running down the trunk
of my body and dampening dirt
like a morning dew.

How loud does blood speak?
How well does its voice carry?
If it cries from dirt and is amplified
by the wind, can its plea
be heard through hospital doors,
through the thick walls of trucks
refrigerated to hold corpses?

A rock in the hand is a prism,
coagulation of dust, a dense 
ball of matter waiting to explode
into a universe of our choosing, 
awaiting only a word 
to come dripping from our lips. 

---

Matthew J. Andrews
Poet

Based in Modesto, California, Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer whose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Sojourners, Funicular Magazine, Red Rock Review, The Dewdrop, and Amethyst Review, among others. He can be reached at matthewjandrews.com.