It was cold for California
when my phone rang half past 3,
my little brother’s on the other line.
He’s shaking like a leaf.

At 17 years old, he lost his
best friend on a eld.
There’s no battle in our history book
compared to how he feels.

Alabaster faces,
all lined up, turning gray.
I watched my brother hold a casket
before his graduation day.

The boy’s poor mother cried
with screams that echoed through the town.
Like a Siren on a shoreline,
begging God to let her drown.

So my brothеr crawled beside hеr
and he got beneath the sheet.
He let a woman hold him,
so that she could make believe.

She said, “Your arms are a bit smaller,
and your hair has got a wave,
but you smell just like my little boy.
You’ve almost got his face.”
So he lay there on the couch
until the sky turned red and tan.
And in a full-grown woman’s arms,
my little brother was a man.