all my cells explode with your light, 
brother, and your red ten-speed bike’s become 
a Saturn V rocket launching you into space, 
all bruise blue and magenta flame sparking you to 
a new dimension we began to wonder about watching 
the famed Apollo 11 telecast live, Neil Armstrong’s 
moonwalk, then Buzz’s, his nickname the same as mine, 
when annoyed with my hovering, you said, Make like a bee 
and buzz on outta here. You were first born, first in line 
on the frontlines, drawing Mother’s fire away from me 
whenever you could—how is it I never understood this truth 
until now, long years after your death and closer to mine? 
How is it the cosmos is dark though it’s full of stars? 
Of the four fundamental forces, that gravity’s 
the weakest, yet keeps planets and heavenly bodies apart, 
science so mysterious and hard to parse? 
Love even more so. If only my heart could have been 
a cardinal whose wings, dear brother, always held you aloft. 

Lana Hechtman Ayers,

a New Yorker who made her way to the Pacific Northwest via a dozen-year sojourn in New England, has shepherded over a hundred thirty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and elsewhere. Lana’s latest collection, The Autobiography of Rain, is available from Fernwood Press.

Author’s website: https://LanaAyers.com