Round a corner they came

Remember how the pomegranate trees
dropped fruit the whole year
on both sides
of the peeling concrete wall
and it rotted so quickly in the heat;
and you poked your fingers at the juicy seeds;
and I didn’t even like pomegranates back then?

And if you do—
do you also remember
that pumagas fruit we haven’t seen since we left?

You and me
we’d climb the sprawling branches
and hook the fruit
till it fell.

I’d watch the gentle purple things falling;
Then grandmother’s white head,
and her wooden basket filling.


Remember how the sea raged at the setting hour
when the sky was beginning to red,
when we were packing our things
still wanting to get in— and your lips were salt-swollen
and I was sea-sore but we
ran and got in?

And the Lego cities we built and destroyed;
And the radio show we recorded on the handheld;
And the ritual of smelling each other’s feet;
And how we shot things at people through my window, snickering;
And the lies we told in unison as we got older?


O— you are implicated forever
My brother.