If our father wasn’t going to put a stop
to our foolishness, you were
not above smacking us around a bit.
With Mother gone, you took over that job
as the responsibility of the oldest son.
Enough is enough,
you’d say. I warned you before,
didn’t I? and you’d slap Jack
in the face. Once.
Twice. Hard. At the breakfast table,
at the supper table,
Jack and I were always conspiring.
Since our mother had vanished
what else did we have to do, all day,
but leap out of the path of bullets,
jump from speeding cars,
keep one step ahead of hired thugs?
How could you not have resented us,
dancing in front of you
like birthday candles
that can’t be blown out, pitiless
in our flamboyance, stealing
Mother’s jewelry off her dressing table,
wrapping her skirts around us
and parading up and down the stairs?
Look, I am the Mad Queen,
Jack would scream in glee.
I am a wicked old woman! I am a witch!
I’d cry. No one can touch me
and live.
The whole world was falling apart.
How could anyone be expected to be reasonable?
Of course you took your hand to us.
You thought you had to.
Boys who live by intrigue
never mind being sent to their room.

Be careful, there are spies everywhere,
Jack and I whispered when we visited
Mother’s hospital. Say nothing.
Even the doctors aren’t safe.
Even in our own rooms
we kept our voices low.
We had stopped asking
when our mother was coming home,
why our father never looked at us.
Our days passed faster
if we were in danger
of being assassinated, mutilated,
hunted down. We had heard whispers.
They had drugged Mother.
Strapped her down. Shot her through with electricity.
We saw photographs in the newspapers:
a tiny man, a tiny woman,
a couple so small
they looked as if they’d been shrunk to fit the picture.
If they could be executed
who could ever be safe?

Outside our town limits
Korea floated in the dark waters
that tugged at the shore and tore away
bits of the land. One by one,
young men began disappearing.
In your room you practiced packing your duffel bag.
You were sixteen, ready
to ship out. An Eagle Scout.
Honor student.
Captain of the wrestling team.
At night we’d spy on you
as you made faces in the mirror
to test which look was most convincing,
which way you should stand
to be brave, to appeal to girls, to be chosen first.
You were making plans
to leave for good. You took over Father’s desk
for your schoolwork — history,
your favorite subject. You studied wars,
planning your own campaigns,
determined not to repeat anyone’s past mistakes.
Not anyone’s!

You’ve got to do something
about these boys!
As soon as Father poked his head in the house
you began scolding him.
You’ve got to make them listen.
I’m tired of wasting my breath.
Trying to get two young boys to be quiet
was like begging waves
to behave, to stop making a ruckus,
to pick up after themselves.
At least you could keep the sea
to a schedule. No wonder
you became a champion sailor.
If you were going to put up with any unruliness
you wanted it on a grand scale.
If anyone was going to throw a tantrum
let it be the winds.
You could trick them. You turned them
against themselves, used them
and the tides
to win yourself still another trophy.
When you fought with us, all you got was a headache.
After you quarreled with the sea
there was your picture in the paper.

What does a boy do
when his mother takes her fist and thrusts it
through a window, and goes outside
and stands in front of her house
and holds out her bleeding arm to one neighbor,
then to another?
What does a young man do if he shouts at his mother,
screams at her,
begs her,
and nothing he says seems to matter?

Maybe if you had to deal with craziness
it was better if it was the ocean’s.
So you chose waves
to resent and curse, to push out of your way.
Storms to plot against.
If anyone was going to be allowed to strike you
let it be the sea.
At the first sign of war
you enlisted. Now
you could hate with your country’s blessing.
When you sent postcards home
they bore no pictures,
no news of ports of call or fleet activity.
They said little: Look after my girl.
Make sure Dad gets enough to eat.
Say hello to Mother for me when you visit her.
They read like letters from a prisoner of war
or a man on a mission.
There was only so much you could say.

One morning, I woke to find you
home on leave.
You were emptying out my room
of everything to do with pretend.
You had already carried most of the maps out to the back yard,
the Library of Scrolls and Chronicles,
the Portfolio of Treaties.
I was nine.
Jack was thirteen. It was time we learned the difference
between reality
and make-believe, you said. See this parchment?
This chart of the Seas of Galan?
This diagram of the Castle of Jerans?
Now, see this match?
You gripped my hand, held it
to the flame. Let it sting me
once. See?
That’s the difference.

Why am I telling you what you know
already? At the age of fifty,
why does a man start talking
about what it was like to be six?
To be nine? To be thirteen? Even as a boy
you ranted about the unholy empire
of the Soviets. Say anything good about Russia
and you’d start fighting.
Maybe you needed a clear enemy,
a story you could pledge your life to.
Don’t most of us need a plot
that explains why we are alive, a place
where we can turn ourselves into characters
playing important roles?
If our lives make up a story
then doesn’t our every gesture,
our every fear,
our every hurt we can’t shake free of,
have to mean something,
so we can look back
and say, Yes,
now I see why this happened?

Remember your rare visits home from the Navy
(were you ever actually in the Navy?)
when you’d try to wake me
so you and your girl could have a bed,
a room whose door you could shut?
Finally you’d be forced to lift me, blankets and all,
and lug me downstairs
and roll me onto the sofa.
I was nine. I remember
I kept my eyes closed
so you’d have to gather me
into your arms. I could reach a hand
sleepily around your neck, push deep
into your shoulder.

The worst of the day is over,
the nestling of the urn down into its metal box,
your daughter drawing you away,
you pulling back,
looking up into each of our faces
as if you’d just been given news
you didn’t know what to do with
and you needed answers
from each of us, from the sky,
the trees. The columbarium
is a vault and you have made an investment
that has cost you everything.
And now, tie loosened, coat off,
the guests gone at last,
a drink in your hand,
you begin talking
as if you and I’ve always been close
and you are just picking up a conversation
we left off a little while ago.
You are telling me everything,
not just the obvious griefs,
but the old lies that still haunt you,
all the promises you wish you had kept,
the one secret no one knew,
not even your wife.
You make sure we are out of everyone’s hearing.
At first it sounds like a bad movie —
gun runnings, assignations, talk of the Company.
Neither of us says the real name,
as if speaking it,
even here in your back yard,
in this small New England town,
we could be heard,
you could be exposed.

I remember Jack and me asking about your wound.
He and I would lie in our beds
and make up stories
of how you got the scar just under your shoulder.
We took turns being you,
a dark prince,
an outlaw. So used to pretending,
to playing spy
and tapping messages in code
or hiding secret documents in our sleeves,
how could we know that our older brother
would, one day, turn out to be part
of a conspiracy far vaster than ours?
And now, given to the extravagancies
to which grief leads a man,
you take off your shirt,
insist I touch your scar.
You tell me how the blade came out of nowhere,
you jumped just in time,
you were lucky
to get out with your life.
Brother, only now that we are miles apart
do I dare begin speaking to you,
and, still, only in code.
O my dearest secret agent,
break it.