A Poem by Aimée Keeble
For R.
And the last time I saw you, (which was the first time I had seen you in twenty-one years,) I had to sleep on the couch because your roommate had left needles scattered on the floor of his bedroom. Silver spikes. I thought of forest floors, the losses of trees. Before we had been six in your room and you said ‘draw with your eyes shut’ and I drew a wolf and then when it was your turn you drew a wolf and we crooked our index fingers beside our temples and growled. Outside in the snow, we huffed our breath above our heads: ‘Look a howl’, and your dad joined us on the porch and tipped his head back and arrrrooooed and his big breath was hot and white. You did an impression of what his pee sounded like hitting the toilet water and puckered your mouth and moved your tongue quickly and I laughed and agreed that my dad’s pee sounded the same. Mothers were quieter. A lot of times, in the night, with our stuffed animals, watching the window for wolf-men. Calm in the cold inside our snowsuits and then even better in the summer- at your grandma’s pool slimy and blue, your hair always longer than mine. You, littler, louder, and more polite. I tried to get you in trouble for eating bacon with your fingers. But that was alright, your mom had said. You moved in with them after your second psychotic breakdown when you parked your car in the middle of the road on the hill in the snow and waited for the ship. And told me later over the phone how at the hospital they had restrained your joints while you laughed. You talk like a kestrel and sometimes it’s exhilarating and sometimes I feel lost and you frighten me. The last time we spoke you explained how epigenetics and crystal meth were hurting you, both you couldn’t help but hold in your palms- one wriggling and fluid the other kaleidoscopic and ablaze. The Wrong Hand of God, you said. I’ve been reading a lot about general relativity and you know you are there still safe in the playroom with me, soft and pink and your honey hair and I’m showing you how to draw a dragon’s wing because I’m older than you by a few months and your cat is still alive and your mom isn’t an addict yet and your brain is a gem that only light travels through.
Aimée has her Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow and is represented by Ayla Zuraw-Friedland at the David Black Agency. Aimée lives in North Carolina with her dog Cowboy and is working on her first novel. She is the grand-niece of Beat writer and poet Alexander Trocchi. You can read more of her work here: https://neutralspaces.co/aimeekeeble/