Dyllan Moran
I MET MY LONG LOST BROTHER FOR THE FIRST TIME LAST YEAR.
No kissing, though we both know that we want to.
You show up at my house wearing the exact same
thing as on your Grindr profile. Pink hat,
cheap diamond earrings, and then, too, a familiar look
that steadily steams underneath my grandmother’s eyes.
It’s the multiplicity of place as body—or how when you
close your eyes you can convince yourself that you’re
lying in a star-streaked field—that convinces me I love you.
You have a name like Atrophy, or maybe it is my cousin’s.
We each light a cigarette, and take turns passing back and forth
the first drag. We drink two cups of black coffee,
double brewed. In the kitchen, we make the same dinner twice,
consecutively, each one after the other, and because I finish first,
I take a shower, and patiently wait for you to come with me.
You finish second, twenty-five minutes later, and you follow.
I anoint your head in oil and leave.
I lay in bed, and I wait for you there, but pretend that I’m asleep.
You open the door, put on my clothes, and walk into the night.
Dyllan Moran graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with B. A.s in both Creative Writing and Japanese. His work has previously appeared in Gasher Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Journal 2020, and Walkabout Creative Arts Journal. He’s currently working in Nishi-Akashi, Japan as an English teacher and will be returning to America soon to continue his work in education. When he’s not writing poetry, he’s studying languages of both the living and dead and rambling about prophetic dreams. Email him here. IG: dyllanmoran.
Image credit: Oussema Rattazi on Unsplash
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #26.
