My Brother, You Drank Hard Darkness II
eyes, ringed by booze now, you’re sorry you missed the funeral
as children, others were beaten down and later, liquored up
to love-scythed hearts they didn’t end up eyes, cornered badgers
you swore, never be like father that fucking sheep just lies there
while mother yanks his balls your eyes, chill as pump water in winter
yet, you married women like her eyes boar bristling hard you bragged
in a fight, shit my last wife could give as good as she got
mother called once I think he’s psychotic then promptly denied it
rutcold eyes ramriding her mouth
the last week, you came she followed you flipped her wheelchair
fell to the sidewalk your liquor’d weaseleyes never looked back
at the service, where on earth is the son to farm folk, what could be said
you, in your eyes trapped in Heineken undertow
brother, don’t say cunt to me I didn’t hammer the nails into your eyes
Bio: Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado. She has been a guest editor for Buffalo Bones, and has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Connecticut Review, anderbo.com, Quarterly West, Naugatuck River Review, Fugue, The Anemone Sidecar, Chickenpinata, and Nimrod. She won the Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest. Two of her poems published in the online journal In Posse Review in 2010 were selected by Web del Sol for its e-SCENE best of the Literary Journals.