Houses are too full of holes,

Windows and doors.

Like spots in an apple, they let rot inside.

Or they let it all leak outside—

the papers, the cold air, the sanity,

 the autistic brother.

Autistic brothers speak louder than words.

 Houses are full of innumerable holes,

 and the fuse in the basement is burning fast.

Like holes being punctured in a boat,

autistic brothers open barriers and leak outside the house and come unstuck—

like in Finding Nemo, where Nemo goes into the dark scary seas despite his father’s pleas

and falls into a diver’s hands.

The house keys crunch and the house alarms screech,

announcing the loss, the break-out, the runaway, the breech.

The walls are churning, and the sky is turning

like a Rubix cube.

Too many lessons, and not enough space for learning,

 just the breathless space between the phone buttons calling 9-1-1.

So many words trying to pin down an autistic brother—

as though he cared for clothes to wear or houses to live inside.

So many teeth waiting to clamp!

Shoes were flapping off my feet,

 and my ears were falling off, listening for him to please come back home.

 The alarms sang in the deadest and blackest night.

Surrounded by my pajamas and stuffed toys,

I watched, listened, as the door opened,

and the voice of a mother called to the autistic brother—

then, like an autistic shooting star, he was clear out of sight.

We reached out to him, though he pushed and shoved us away.

We rewrote the dictionaries of love.

We were and still are the house that is a ship full of holes.

The holes are burning. The ship is yearning.

Before we have time for speaking or thinking,

 the ship is sinking.