David was my brother
and killed himself
by the sea,
a dark night
without city lights
to obscure the milky way.

My hair glistens around me like stars
on the night when a man
cracks in half and falls
into the ocean.
Sheets of water,
as I come out of sleep,
no lover,
only the sweaty body of dreams
                                                   he stands over my bed
                                                   as I wake up
                                                   silent,
                                                   whispering to himself,
                                                   “no scars,
                                                   “no scars,”
but he forgets
David who died in the ocean
when the stars were visible in some brilliant sky,
and does not see my belly
mangle with scars
from childhood or birth.

Poetry is our history.
We study the stars
to understand temperatures.
Life and death are the only issues;
we often forget that—
arranging our furniture,
washing our cars.

When I look at the sky
I think of David
throwing himself off that cliff
into an ocean which moves with the moon,
dying,
the red blood in his mouth
in a night as black 
as eels.