Last Trauma Poem by Dennis Ryan

Thursday morning, February 18,2021

Edee: 'How did you find me? '
Miguel: 'You were in my path.'
--spoken during a conversation between the two main characters of Robin Wright's recent film Land

For a long time, I have wanted to ask him,
'Have you ever tried to get inside my life
these past twenty years, that of my wife
and children, actively imagined how
they feel, I feel? ' He is blood, of course,
and such a question is difficult to ask
because every available indicator points
to the fact he hasn't tried, doesn't want to,
would avoid doing so at all costs, and would
quickly lie about it if pressed for an answer.
My brother has been watching us from afar
these many years, remains emotionally distant,
as distant perhaps as the town in which he lives.
He has never visited us of his own accord,
though he did once with our mother, at her behest,
though he claims he visited us in our little house
in Tampa some other year, though he's lying,
of course, and we don't know why. Perhaps
it's to make him feel better about himself.
It's extremely difficult to write these verses.
I hesitate to write anything; I want to write
what's decent, honest and fair to both of us,
though honesty seems beyond the point
with him. He needs to safe-guard himself
above all else, that much is clear. If he
thinks of us at all, its as an afterthought,
a footnote of a sort of risk assessment.
We're the last thing on my brother's mind.