Photograph of my Brother by Rob Cording

Photograph of my Brother

Half-dressed, a pair of socks in my hand,
I’m looking at a photograph of my brother,
framed atop my dresser. Dead now five years,
he’s hunched over his phone, a beer nearby
on the table, looking up at the camera
with that grin that showed off his dimples.
I’m wondering who he was texting,
imagining his smart-ass reply to our mom,
so I don’t notice, at first, my daughter.
“Why do you like that picture so much?”
she asks. How to respond to such a question?
How to explain that I’m trying to imagine
the way his shoulders would’ve turned
as he looked up, to feel his strong hands,
clean in this picture, but usually flecked
with paint. How to say that I want
to remember the sound of his voice better
than I do? “Because he looks so happy,”
I tell her, closing the dresser drawer.
I sit on the edge of the bed, start
to put on my socks. My daughter is looking
at the picture now, when she turns and asks,
“But he doesn’t know he’s going to die, does he?”

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Rob Cording teaches high school English in Boston, MA. Recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming from New Ohio Review, Tar River Review, and Here: a poetry journal.