A Younger Brother

A Younger Brother

A.J. Maruna

In the face you are my brother.
You have more than skin from me.
You think these thoughts of mine
but they do not eat you like they do me.
Your eyes glow with Alabama sun.
Your veins grow wheat.
There’s locusts on my tongue.
Lineage does not deliberate,
so can we forget about our harvest?
Just this once can we go back to playing like coyotes
in those fields behind Papa’s barn?
Life was not a sowing.
It was warm light winking over smiling clods.
It was…
Oh God, there’s the weathervane going
crow, crow, crow.
Don’t be afraid of that storm. Look at the sun.
We’re playing like boys,
we’re playing like boys,
long before you outgrow me
and whatever I become.

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A.J. Maruna
Researcher & Writer

A.J. has been published in Plough. You can read more of his work at ajmaruna.substack.com.

Photography by Alexander Mass