For My Brother

We knelt in the recess of a hollowed rock. We lit a driftwood pyre with your magnifying glass. The roasting pinecone opened itself like a mother’s hand. We ate the flesh of its seeds. Nearby the Mediterranean ticked without stop above the angelfish while behind our cave, in the cliff-side house, she placed a note in Father’s typewriter: I give up,

since you want me still

and silent.

I believe the ink unfurled, frail as a spider, when he smoothed out the sheet. Then he crushed it in his palm. Yes, I know, you and I had filled our ears, like conch shells, with noise. But no matter: What happened next we could not have stopped.