Strangers touched me inside, this time with a large bore
needle. They told me when it was over. I didn’t get

to say. Not when it hurt a little, not when it hurt a lot.
When they pushed the fentanyl, I thought, Oh, I’m afraid,

the way I might notice, then name, a butterfly lighting
on a blade. My first narcotic and suddenly, little brother,

I understood what you wanted. I forgave. Later woke
lighter, knowing there’d never been a sin against me,

though, yes, I’d suffered, and you were sorry for so long.
What a way to live—me in your story, you in mine.

The summer you turned five, you started hiding,
in the old blanket chest, underneath the bed.

You thought the shots you got for kindergarten
would happen every day, jab or two with morning milk,

and you couldn’t imagine anything sweet enough
to make you take and take such pain. We explained

you were all caught up, no more shots for years
but it didn’t calm your fears. You got sick on the bus,

lingered so long in the boys’ bathroom the janitor
had to fetch you out. One day you walked the blocks

back home, unwitnessed flight, teacher’s gaze distracted
by a fight. I wasn’t there, just married, so I don’t know

how long you waited, freezing on the porch, before
a neighbor called our dad at work, but here’s a fact:

your pinkie toes went black. Now a hole between my ribs
through which maybe self-righteousness slid, along with

the pieces of meat they snipped from me, whole drugged
minutes during which I slipped—finally—from the grip

of myself, though nothing blurred but me. The room
stayed sharp, and scalpel, too. Can you feel it? he said,

and I meant to ask Feel what? but I said no. Brother,
I felt everything and still held still for carving.

Seems like you know how to quit a thing that hurts
but only by exchanging it for something worse. Mine’s

a different curse. I can’t quit anything. Even now.
When the tests came back, they said no more booze,

for life—three pills a day, clean living, and for a while
I’ll keep the liver I was born with, the one my body

wants to kill, the one that seems to mean me ill—
and I had to laugh. Hadn’t I abstained since birth?

Tonight’s a first. I’d once have walked wide-eyed—
yes, sober—into flames for more of what I’ve got

right now. I counted the ways on the way to the table,
replayed one kiss and thought remember this, as though

I’d take a memory to grave or maybe here, where fear
might make me make a bitter trade, too-bright worry

for some darker shade, might make me think,
oh brother, how well played your hand and every

hand before us, forefathers and uncles whose livers
conked out, too, who maybe forewent sober life

not to swallow something so sweet they’d risk
death for one more taste but because life hurts

too fucking much to do it dry. Do I get to say
when it’s over? Brother, I’m scared. I’ll try.