Looking
for My Other Brother
He used to be our middle brother
but somehow he got away, and even though
the money allotted to us was the same,
for him it was not enough
I use Google Earth to find him now,
navigating the streets of Las Vegas
where his home was foreclosed,
just another happening he never
disclosed to us
I visited him there once—the lost home,
beige like all the other ones on the street—
on a three-hour Southwest Airlines stopover,
stepping past occasional furniture I didn’t
recognize to have lunch with him
at a Formica table. We talked about
everything but money, a promise
we had made at the airport
One of his postcards mentioned an address
that puts him snug between KFC and the Nevada
School of Massage. I imagine him comforted by
those sticky chicken legs and the oil they use
for cooking them, not unlike what is rubbed
into one’s skin before the masseuse begins—
make
yourself comfortable—she invariably says
On Google’s street view I scan the perimeter
of pseudo-abobe apartment walls, looking for Mother’s
old Cadillac in the parking lot—he’d be lucky to keep it
running. He works hard, he says, dancing all night
with women one third his age. At seventy he still
has the moves the shuffle the dip
the quick duck out of sight
the quick duck out of sight