My brother is an only child.
Three years old, in faded pajamas a bit too small.
He wakes up screaming
The choo-choo train! Coming through the window!
This happens night after night.
One morning my father takes him to watch a train.
It stays on the tracks, my father points out,
And don’t call it a choo-choo train, it’s a diesel locomotive.
Diesel loco-motiff, the child repeats carefully.
They return to the apartment.
A small, flimsy place in converted army barracks.
My mother speaks cooly to her husband.
He has ordered a set of encyclopedias to be paid for
on the installment plan. She wanted a washing machine.
That night, a small miracle.
My brother sleeps through. Perhaps the roar
of the train passing by has found its way
into someone else’s dream.
My father takes my mother into his arms
tenderly, makes promises that will be hard to keep,
wins her over once again.
Despite everything, she believes in him.
I am a flicker of lamplight, breath
of evening. I hover,
come closer to them.
This is my chance.
