You never got to recline
in the maternal tradition,
I never let you. Fate.

you call it, had other eyes,
for neither of us ever had
a counterpart in the way

familial traditions go.
I was your brother,
and you were my unhappy

neighbor. I pitied you
the way a mother pities
her son’s failure. I could

never find the proper
approach. I would have
lent you sugar, mother.