It’s the moon and the stars I’m asking, 
stalking them through pine and maple,
for a sign or the gentlest of intimations.
But my tongue is the wing 
of another dead sparrow 
with no whisper. I can’t pray exactly, 
only sense passing through me 
a starlight that’s been falling this way for centuries 
like salt, some kind of brilliant, crystalline evil,
or worse, it’s nothing  
but a sensation. Here’s the story, 
half about my brother, 
recently gone to ground,
not getting the rights salts 
or the full spectrum of light
he needs from Big Pharma 
or Big Random or, if you like, Whomever,
who must have taken a wrong turn, again.   
Late, I phone and ask after what I already know,   
though he still throws me when he answers 
that this time the blow was as sudden as an ax
to the head, a stump burning, blowing sparks
and collapsing so it’s been like being on fire 
but not being able to run out of himself 
or keep the long wick of his back 
from curling so he’s been sitting or walking 
around hunched, sometimes pretending to be
working, sometimes just watching others slip 
like otters through air slick as water. The hospital
gave him foam slippers and a little white note
for his employer so his sticking around 
home now is more than small 
pocket heroics, you know, to rise 
every day from a bed of ash and hang 
near the ceiling that way, for as long 
as it’s going to take, patient
curling, quiet as smoke.
When he stops speaking, we both read,		
imperfectly, the text of our silence.
We both know the weather, the scores,
the stations to go which are many.
We’re just trying, hearts trying 
by staying here, letting the air go on beating us
about the ears, our pulses beating, fleetingly 
in synch, those seconds flaring like comets, 
rich with the nearness that saves us.