It’s hot in the department store.
My mother’s mission: Buy a Shirt for Brother.
My brother’s mission: Thwart Mom's Mission.
I am a loyal sister who cries when my
brother gets a spanking.
My mission: Be Brother's First
Lieutenant, i.e., We Must Leave the Store Shirt-Free.
The sooner we exasperate my mother, the
sooner we leave.
I broadcast my conspiratorial boredom
by wandering off a little,
among shirt racks and ties
and beige new-clothes-and-metal-poles
smells.
My brother marches indignantly towards
me
holding a shirt that’s on the teal
end of sky blue.
“Do you like this shirt?”
I do, but I remind myself,
We Must Leave the Store Shirt-Free.
My answer is clear.
“No.” Ummmm, “Too plain.”
But wait! I spy drooping hope.
“I thought you’d think it was
pretty.”
But—the mission—………and yet,
“Oh, yeah, I mean, I do think
it’s pretty—”
Too late. Nothing I can say will take
it back.
All I want in the world
is for him to know
that I’m on his side.
Ten summers afterwards,
I will still rewind that conversation
wishing I could get it right.
But by then I will believe my brother
when he reminds me that the best way
to be a good first lieutenant
is to believe my own eyes.
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