Brother
Jeremiah Gilbert
Stillborn, not granted a name
or death certificate,
I sometimes wonder who
you would have become,
my predecessor, my replacement.
Had you lived, you'd have been
the only one, as I am now--
no younger siblings to taunt
or older brother to look up to,
sent to your room when punished,
left alone with your books.
Would you have been given my name?
Possessed our mother's eyes?
The chin our father always wanted?
Would your beard be red when short
and your hair black?
In my place, would you have been
too afraid of being hurt by life
to truly enjoy it for far too long?
Or was your brief instance a choice,
terminated before the sterilized air
could infest your lungs?