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there were his baseball cards
collected in a shoebox,
his model submarines, and planes.
he paced in a restless waddle
from corner to corner in our bedroom.
he could beat me at any game
and always wanted to prove it.
the five years separating our births
often proved to be a continent.

sometimes we slept in bunk beds
and he would get the top bed.
so often he was sick that mom &
dad would worry until finally
he would pull through.
nervously he rattled and dogeared 
the corners of every comic book,
every magazine he read.

he collected baseball cards in a shoebox,
model submarines, and planes.
despite his love for sports,
I hated them all.
he played them a lot with his friends.
it was so important for him to win. 
he always wanted me to come along.
he wanted me to love sports,
and I tried hard to like them.
sometimes I thought I did.

we played ping-pong and as with
every competition, he always beat me.
checkers, chess, Monopoly, and badminton. 
I lost every time we played.
still, he never tired of competing with me.
and he was always eager to include me
in any game. he always tried to coax me
 even when I did not wish to participate, 

when I started kindergarten
we would stand at the street corner  
waiting for the school bus.
he wore a red coat.
the big sixth-grade girls laughed
and called me names. 
I would cry into that red coat
I would cling to that red coat
and feel protected.

he collected baseball cards in a shoebox,
model submarines and planes.
sometimes he went to this big hill of dirt
where he jumped off with his friends.
he brought me once and I stood staring
down that slope, white with fear.
he kept coaxing me to jump,
I could barely hear his words.
I was already seven, I decided.
that was when I jumped.

he always wanted me there
to help the other older guys
build tree forts with bent nails, 
cracked boards, and long thick ropes.
I also won’t forget our exploration
of Hell’s Cave, our neighborhood 
Carlsbad Cavern.
with candles and flashlights, 
we crawled on our bellies for fifty feet 
until the cave opened into the first 
inner chamber. 

at the swimming pool,
he coaxed me up onto the high dive.
as time stopped, I looked down from 
the end of the board, blind with dizzy dread.
everyone at the pool that day watched
my struggle.
everyone cheered my panicked final leap,
my body tumbling through naked space.
I did it.

he collected baseball cards in a shoebox,
model submarines and planes.
for a time, we shared a basement bedroom.
I wouldn’t say I liked the way he studied 
and withdrew there.
I would tease him until he hit me.
mom always came down with the stick
to break it up.

one night, he had to babysit me.
he sat upstairs and told me to go to bed.
The house was flooded with
the din of Beethoven.
I snuck upstairs repeatedly.
he laughed at first,
but I was a persistent pest.
he finally chased me down the stairs,
grabbed me, and knocked me down.
the floor was hard and cold against
my head. I cried for a long time 
and went to sleep. 

when he went to college,
he left his dirty baseball cards in a shoebox,
his model submarines and planes.
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