Joe

I’m looking out the window of the apartment

across the street to the Mennonite church

watching the snow melting on the churchyard grass.

Daddy is downstairs cutting hair in the barbershop

Mama is in the back giving a perm.

I’m watching you this warm January day

in your paratrooper boots and fatigues

burning the Christmas tree

there by the curb.

The fire circles round your feet

but can’t burn you through the thick leather

You’re my big brother

the one who takes me on car rides

spins around corners

goes too fast on broad-uncrowded streets.

I’m never worried.  I’m always safe. 

You tell me, “Mush, Joe knows.

Joe knows everything.”

I believe.

You blow smoke rings for me to catch

teach me to jitterbug in the dining room

When I slip and break my collar-bone,

it’s you who holds me in the emergency room

You hang a rope swing, push me higher

and higher until my feet touch the leaves.

Take me to Falatoccos on the day

before my First Communion

buy me an Easter bonnet and walking shoes.

Treat me to my first vanilla ice cream soda.

Those days it was always you and me

The college student back from the war

The OSS hero who organized

the Chinese resistance

had a price on his heard

before his 21^st birthday

And his baby sister.

Now,

I hold your arm to steady you

as we walk,

cover you with a blanket.

In the kitchen,

Make you chicken soup.

Cut your meat.

Peal you a peach.

Coax you to eat.

Repeat my name.

It’s me.  It’s Mush.

Like the snow that winter

You are melting

Disappearing like the Christmas tree.

Mary Ann Vigilante Mannino