Middle Child

The young one, I knew he was in
danger being born in such cold,                 his skin

            lighter and more susceptible

to the sun.

Like a succulent, red leaves turned
upward toward the sky,
                                                            he is afraid to

be shoveled out of the ground &
            replanted—

I think I only remember the smallness of
him, the awkwardness of his growing
frame,
                        the length of his bones and the

youth

of his wrists. Below all of that
fair skin,
a recollection of
our oldest brother, a
desire to throw               a pitch in the same way,

fine-grained, young bodies
golden like flax—

There is a boy on either side
of me; as the girl, I’ve          dreamt of

            tragedy,

of both of them dying—I woke up
wishing to write notes &
letters
                                    with diagrams
                                                outlining the ways

our ribcages have been bound
together with twine—

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