WEBVTT

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"The Attic."

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Jon Anderson, where are you?

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He was flipping through
this earlier, and went,

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I love your poem
called "The Attic."

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He was just pretending.

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"The Attic."

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Praise to my older brother,
the 17-year-old boy,

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who lived with me in the attic
like an exiled prince grown hard

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in his confinement, bitter,
bent to his evening task,

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building the imaginary
building on the drawing board

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they've given him in school.

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His tools gleam
under the desk lamp.

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He is as hard as the pencil
he holds, drawing the lines

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straight along the ruler.

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Tower prince, young
king, prays to the boy

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who has willed his blood to
cool in his heart to slow.

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He's building a structure
with so many doors

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it's finally quiet, so that
when our father climbs heavily

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up the attic stairs, he doesn't
at first hear him pass down

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the narrow hall.

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He lifts the clear
plastic of one page

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to look more closely
at the plumbing,

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he barely hears the
springs of my bed

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when our father sits
down, he's imagining

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where the boiler might go,
because where it is now

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isn't working.

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Not until I've slammed the door
behind the man stumbling down

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the stairs again does my brother
look up from where he's working.

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I know it hurts him to rise, to
knock on my door and come in.

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And when he draws his skinny
arm around my shaking shoulders.

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I don't know if he knows
he's building a world where

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I can one day love a man.

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He sits there without
saying anything.

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Praise him.

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I know he can hardly
bear to touch me.

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