Barry

Barry

I made his bail

in some crappy 

little courthouse 

in the Panhandle.

I don’t recall

the name for

what he’d sold.

The sun was high

and the light had

turned the town

an astonished white.

After, we ate 

biscuits, eggs and grits,

drowned in the 

deep red country 

gravy so often

served in the South, 

at an aging diner by 

the railroad tracks.  

We hardly talked

my brother and I---

our common past 

as forsaken as

the tracks we sat beside.

He ate quickly. His

features flashing

lined and yellowed

in the dying fluorescent 

bulb, half hanging from

a ceiling browned

with age and grease.

I watched in silence

as his forked hand shook.

Barry left 

in the beat up truck 

our mom had bought 

him twenty years 

ago, or so, 

as I fingered the 

keys to my rental.

The truck was blood 

red once. We both 

knew that he’d

jump bail. 

I watched him 

make his snaky 

way to SR 20,  

and then, 

no wiser,

left for home.