How to Watch Your Brother Die.

How To Watch Your Brother Die
By Micheal Lassel


This poignant poem was first published in 1985 in "Poems for the Lost and Un-Lost Boys" a book of collected poems by Micheal Lassel.

The poem begins as the main character, the brother of the soon to be deceased titular sibling, is contacted and told his brother has a very short time to live. The health brother immediately embarks on a trip to spend the few precious moments left in his brother’s life by his side. This tale is delivered in the structure as a poem, perhaps to emphasize the crescendos of pathos and to isolate the emotional moments in the deceiving simplicity of its delivery. The following stanza finds the main character as he is entering his ailing brother’s hospital room, only to be met by his sibling’s gay lover, ever vigilant, by his side:

"Watch the lover's eye as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opened yo...