"brothers in the dark"
written half-asleep and half-alive with a full memory by jake kilroy.

a room full of men
interchangeable to their core
reciting each line of the quiet man
like it were the lost work of beckett,
from thornton to danaher;
an inflection of emerald wit
for wily ol' michaeleen,
patron saint of irish drunks in love
(when not squaring bookie bets).

stone walls and roaming sheep
dotting the idyll of white o'morn,
heavy clouds above misty churchgoers—
the only color in the family room
not from the two-sided fireplace,
with the wives across the flames,
making amends for the family war,
so their children will grow up
knowing how their ancestors
spelt their names and waltzed into each room
before america pocketed the apostrophes
and shipped the step dancers off to the slums.

a den of brothers
technically talking to each other
in a movie dialogue curse;
a whistle choir for mary kate,
the only freewheeling peace,
before the guilt of county mayo
swallows their breaths
and blossoms into silence.

their children's mothers know
the eulogies will be the only thing
that makes any of them pen pals.

nothing can outlast irish pride,
not even family. hell, blood corrodes.
gaelic promises scrawled across a crest,
as if the catholics don't use lineage shields
to sever the nerves of heritage,
letting a last name bleed out,
strapped to the family tree,
awaiting salvation;
all of us martyrs, all of us tyrants,
all of us madmen, all of us drunks.

and so comes the pivotal scene,
a brawl between boxer and squire,
the all-out assault on would-be family;
a union of strength the brothers see,
each assuming they're the hero,
agreeing the violence was unavoidable,
nodding along to years of silence,
in the house they spent summers
crashing parties and dodging the law.
at their mother's wake, a day earlier,
one of the cousins recounted a story—
their redheaded mother, much younger with fury,
yelling, "i can't go to the hospital again;
i've been there twice this month!"
her fourth-wildest nephew cackling back,
"mary, i can't go back to the sheriff's office;
i've been there twice as much this month
and they're starting to know me by name!"

the hospital room where they met with nods
wasn't nearly as sterile as this former house of the wild—
the pool parties that were a risk of life and limb,
bolstered by american beer and leaps of faith;
holy writ stories of the mystic dogs they raised,
from the one that could reach the roof
to the one the milkman carried in;
a legacy of memories dropped as spoken word
over card games through their father's cigar smoke.
a boundless supply of madcap summer tales,
where the twist is everyone makes it out alive,
rolling off their tongues as easily
as the acid dropped onto them,
is now a memory itself,
lost to the eternal freeze.

so whatever cavalier spirit climbed inside their muscles
and pumped their hearts with fire back in the day
now wanders an increasingly empty house,
waiting for the boys to come home,
failing to recognize the men
sitting quietly in the dark;
a lonely ghost shuffling a deck
in the dining room, in hopes of gamblers;
but the wildcards have all been played,
taking only one secret to the grave
and that's how it all started.