Mary Angelino

Unsent Message to My Brother in His Pain

after Leon Stokesbury
 

Yesterday, I thought I saw your sleeping bag 
rolled out on some curb, your body
one muscle, the veins on your face
a sideshow of sleep. When was the last time 
you slept then had a day that wasn’t chewed 
raw? Yesterday, the sky was smooth
as an unchipped shell, a newborn’s ear, 
& my eyes were a camera panning out
until there was just cold blue Earth & space 
pocked with stars. They’ve built machines 
that might clean up the ocean now,
& it’s somebody’s job, somewhere, to write 
tasting notes for a thousand varieties of tea— 
woodsy, vegetal, tart, the summer’s first cluster
of raspberries trapped in the bramble like Jesus’s
thorn-wreathed heart. If you come to see me,
I won’t dredge up our childhood.
We’ll watch the cat chitter at angular crows, 
laugh at the instinct that thrusts him
against the glass. Listen, if you come to see me, 
I’ll make you something soaked in vinegar, 
olive oil, garlic, & herbs—something that tastes 
better the longer you leave it alone.

Mary Angelino earned her MFA from the University of Arkansas in 2011 where she was awarded the Lily Peter and the Felix Christopher McKean prizes in poetry. In 2012, she received an Artist Grant from the Arkansas Arts Council. Her publications include Rattle, the Southern Humanities Review, and the Best New Poets anthologies (2017, 2015, 2010). Mary is Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California.