FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: DEAD DAYS Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words dead and/or day, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PST on November 15th. No PDF's please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Dead Days will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, November 16th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Monday, November 11, 2024

Lorelei Kay


KILLING MY BROTHER


I didn’t mean to do it 

my intentions weren’t deadly 

I just wanted to share with him

some Christmas shopping cheer


but I didn’t know


I met him at his open door

embraced him with a hug

holding neither gun nor knife

yet still a lethal greeting 


because I didn’t know 


we hastened to the bookstore

he’d always loved to read 

with racks and stacks to choose from 

he filled the shopping cart


so how was I to know


first ambulance to hospital

then he spiraled down

his chart revealed I’d given him

a gift more grim than books


I truly didn’t know


after all I had no symptoms

my vaccinations up to date

yet I’d shot the virus gun

that triggered his life’s end


everyone says

it’s not my fault

because

I didn’t know


and this is what

I tell myself

as I lie in bed

not sleeping


just

staring

at the 

wall.


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