To My Big Brother

by Brendan Cavanagh

While Dad demonstrates for the rest of us

the black-and-blue beauty

of his favorite leather belt,

now gripped tightly by bone-white knuckles,

the one which normally holds up his corduroys

six days out of the week,

unless, of course, he uses it

to bind Mom to the rigid hardwood bed frame and to coerce her

into once again bearing the fruits of his Casanovian prowess;

Grandma sings hymns in the shower

to repent for missing Mass the last four Sundays

because she was too busy caring for Grandpa,

whose emaciated frame lies pale gray

on the living-room couch,

emitting wet, rattling coughs

between drags on an endless chain of cigarettes;

Our dog naps serenely underneath the porch

(I imagine he doesn’t enjoy cigarettes

as much as Grandpa does),

nursing the festering scab and flesh-colored band-aid

that now mark where once was the perpetually-wagging tail

that he succeeded in sinking his fangs into

after going mad from five days of nothing

but the lingering crumbs of an empty kibble bowl;

Our sister fucks a stranger

in the back of his gun-metal black Mercedes

so that she will at last have enough cash

to buy our littlest brother cough medicine

(he hasn’t slept or stopped crying in nights,

and his forehead is hotter than the makeshift fire

we huddle around feeding

with barrels of unpaid bills every night),

and she hopes to still have enough for a pint of whiskey

to get her through back-to-back shifts

at the diner on the other side of town

(hopefully she’ll overdo it again

like she did when she was a cashier at the mall,

and blackout so she can forget all of this);

Between twin candles flanked

by linen curtains in the front window

of the warm, brick house across the street I can see

smiling and satisfied faces encircling

a steaming turkey and not one, but two bottles of rich, red wine,

where the only unbuckled belts lie flaccid and tame

between the belt loops of pants fit to burst

clean off ever-expanding bellies,

and a dog chases his golden tail

in an oblivion of dead leaves

which the family raked laughing

just before their mother called them to dinner;

I’m writing this letter to you,

begging you to come back home so you can scare away

these monsters that won’t stay in the closet anymore.