On the phone I ask my brother

 

           "After Pro-Trump Mob Storms Capitol, Congress Confirms Biden Win"

                                                --The New York Times, January 7, 2021

 

 

On the phone I ask my brother

if the storming of the Capitol affected him or his family,

out there in Rockville.

Not him, he says, but his daughter lives

not far from the White House.

 

Antifa agitators.

 

And we are into it: ballots

in boxcars,

the whatabouts.

 

And as we get farther into it

the path we're on rises and narrows

and my brother's voice begins to step

on the heels of my replies before I

can take

my second stride

and his laugh that says, "I've heard that

before!" overtakes my sentences,

redirecting them

with a glancing shove—

and something floats free,

like tear gas blown back,

a wavering note,

thinning out, shaking

with desperation to be heard—trumpet

of a prophecy turning to clown horn as he speaks,

urgent with the catch and click

of panic in the dreamer's song

as he realizes,

not for the first time, perhaps,

that no one can hear his voice.

 

When he stops to catch his breath

I point toward more familiar topics,

like heat pumps

and electric cars.

In the flat valleys they inhabit

we can listen to the same river,

and the road next to it is wide enough

for walking side by side.

I let my brother, the radar engineer,

hold the map that tells us

where we're going.

 

Not back home. No way home—no one there

to greet us anyway.