My Brother Is Getting Divorced

Remember how we almost flew
to the park, our small feet skimming
the wild grass and clover by the bank?
Saturday afternoons by the river
and old-time hymns still shrill in my ears.
Our father crouched to pick the flattest stones
while you stretched your shirt into a basket.
You filled it with chunks of smoothed quartz
and calcite, banded sandstone, chips of ashy slate.
I liked to pick a few stones at a time, practiced
how to sling my arm and sharply snap my wrist
before release, watching to see if our father noticed.
My best skips were like his, the stones hopping
in four or five long arcs, coasting the water
like dragonflies before slipping under the reeds.
He was always close by you, a rough hand
on your bony shoulder, or bending over
to give you his own rocks, thin and balanced.
We watched you hurl them at the other shore
and scare the water fowl into stuttered flight.
Look, I’m not saying I was better, just more
patient, more lucky, and quicker to learn.
Sometimes I helped you search, clapped
when you managed two bumps and clonk,
and sometimes we watched you stomp off
in tears, rubbing your face and kicking clumps
of patchy grass. This is a lot like that.

Natasha L. Rodriguez-Carroll has an MFA in Poetry from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (NEOMFA) consortium and a BA in Spanish from Kent State University. She lives in Kent, Ohio, with her husband and daughters, and spends her free time volunteering in her community.