Craig Ryan     Lake Worth    (Mary Galvin)
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The stars are shining through my window—five o’clock in the morning
When the sky’s purple luminescence stains the blinds and
Makes you dream of beautiful houses and the ocean’s arms—that’s when
I hear a moan—not a girlish moan like your mother might make after
Sipping some good chicken noddle soup and complimenting your use
Of onions no, more of the dying moan your father makes when he sips black coffee
At five am after a long night shift in a cheap strip club, the moan of death and nails
Hammers striking vocal chords, piano keys shattered and shards flying sideways
And I raise my head off the pillow—blink my eyes—hear my brother vomit up
Five nights of a bender—cheap vodka into a brand new toilet bowl. I hear his bowels
Down into the core of him. I can tell by his moan that he’s on his hands and knees
Face pressed to the lip of the toilet, sweat rolling into his eyes. I can
Tell that he’s naked by his desperate pleas to just die, His body scrunched
Up between the walls like a used Kleenex. I want to ask him if he’s all right—the
Sky lifts its curtains and the moon shines its final light. I hear my brother cry--
I hear his head bounce off the linoleum. He holds himself, his fingers
Tracing the stretch marks which cross his body, and when I help him up,
Fit the crook of his arm around my neck, I whisper something to him that
I know he can’t hear. I help him to bed, wipe the drool from his mouth.
The night recedes like a black tongue into the gold of a new day’s open jaws,
And for the first time in my life, I kneel beside him. I hold his hands and at the
Foot of his bed, I kneel and pray. 
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