Counterpoise
A Poem
My brother loses phones, I lose myself;
It is a bizarre kind of yang to ying,
A balance I’m only just remembering
As I strain to fashion words from static:
His voice is tinny down the line of an unfamiliar number
It must be some kind of record, I tell him —
I wonder if it is. His timing is solid though;
His timing is apt; yang and so ying, as ever thus.
Is it lost or is broken? I ask. Both, I think he says.
He used to shatter them all the time,
Break them into pieces that rolled in the dust:
I had thought he’d got better at that, or maybe just
Over time, it’d become harder to do: I find that’s not the case.
I’m wrong on both, (or many?), multiple counts.
Aren’t you too old for this? I ask.
(It does seem ridiculous at this age, at our age,
Middling and paunching, fine lines creeping at the
Edges of our cheeks). Shouldn’t you be past this stage?
The line is really bad though and I can’t make out his reply.
There’s a pattern here, too, if I want to find it.
