The sun is slamming up the east
after a night of hard squalls.
Peonies out back have yet to pop
this cold spring, which is good,
I think; better not too hot too
fast. My brother and I sit on
the photographer’s studio bench
we’ve been sitting on since 1945,
both of us with silly-ass pasted-on
grins, both in short pants, hair
smoothed to the right, towheaded
almost, sitting closer than we’d
ever sit again. I look at all that
promise on my mantel, lost in the
ashes of the last century in whose
waning years my brother up and
died, tired, I think, as I am now,
burned out from too much
disappointment, tired of beer,
tired of romance, tired of fishing,
tired even of his favourite--looking
at the stars. When one tires of
everything, even the tireless sun
slamming up the east promises only
terrible light glaring on one’s
insufficiencies. To look at the
likes of that every morning is more
than one should have to bear.
Originally published in Avalon Review Fall 2016
James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His work has been published in Atlanta Review, Faultline, New York Quarterly, Penn Review, Unbroken, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press), was published in 2019.