Inheritance
—On What Remains—
"When did he leave?" my brother asked, as we whitewashed the fence.
I stopped, watched fresh paint disappear into the grain, torn
between what I believed was true and what I thought
might be. I wasn't sure. "Well?" *"I think we brought
him farther than we knew."* "Go on."
He turned the radio off. Silence. All autumn long,
the house had answered every sound with one withdrawn
echo, while all my thoughts had wrestled down the fraught
when-did-he-leave
question. Crushing "then!" Whispering "not." That it was wrong
to search for someone only where the body's gone.
One day your own hands will interrupt you with someone else's certainty.
My brother began to carve the bread. *"You'll sort
it out. Let's eat."* "But the fence..." *"...can wait. Look, I've brought
your favourite pie."* And the evening wind moved through the pickets,
painting both sides at once.
"When did he leave?"
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