The Messenger Poem by Alicia Patti

The night my younger brother died
my father sat like a hunchback, moaning
an old Sicilian dirge.
My mother tore her hair and wailed
as visions of her beautiful boy assailed
her anguished brain.
I saw him lying on the ground, his skull
splattered on the killing street, like a ripe melon,
as the dastardly car sped by.

My father did not even notice
the forbidden cigarette dangling
from my trembling lips, my dilated
nostrils snorting fire, like a raging young dragon
spitting in the Face of Death.
When he finally raised his tearful gaze to mine,
I saw a flicker of recrimination.

I bowed my head and shuddered with a sigh.
Why does the messenger also have to die?