Julie A. Cox
Artifact: Dead Poets Society DVD
My brother watched the film
over and over in the months
before he died. I found him
up past midnight
replaying the scene where
the son fires a gun and falls
in the father’s home office.
My brother hunkered in the dark,
lit only by the cave light of TV,
his face reflected ice-blue
in the living room window.
I paused in the room, then
muttered good night, moved on
without another thought.
I did not join him to watch
the parents discover the son,
the father crying out,
My boy! My boy!
I got the news weeks later.
My brother knew, as I do now,
that some scenes can never be erased.
I still replay how he sat,
impassive yet rapt,
watching two fictional parents
confront the fact of their son’s death.
That dim-lit living room,
smolder of TV light, a cold fire
that never goes out.
My brother planned well,
timed things
for when our parents were away,
to leave no trace
our parents would need to face
in person. My brother knew
when he took charge
of his future, it meant—
O Captain! My Captain!—
the choice of an exit
discovered only by strangers.
~
They’ll Know You
You want the crows to be your friends.
You put out cut fruit and peanuts
for the local opossum,
place marbles in birdbaths
so sipping insects have footholds.
Now you’re tossing rancid meat
onto the garage roof
as one of your many treats
for the carrion eaters.
They’ll memorize your face, I tease.
The crows arrive, stand there—
not the way, with an aerosol of caws,
they encircled a crow carcass in the alley,
but scattered, silent as dusky monks
as they peck the meat.
They’ll memorize your face
as other crows learned the face of the scientist
who tagged their young in the nest—
how they harangued the guy
from tree to tree as he walked by.
As those crows knew him,
our crows will know you, only kindly.
Try twisting at the waist to see them
upside down—watch them react,
swivel their heads like obsidian door knobs.
You, the non-dog-owning giver of dog food
(a treat crows love! you read). They’ll know you.
Julie A. Cox (she/her) received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where she was an Edelstein-Keller poetry fellow. A finalist for the Loft Mentorship Series and Writers@Work competition, she has poems published in Cream City Review, En-Trance Journal, Failbetter, Grist, Juke Joint, Rust+Moth, Salamander, and elsewhere.
