On the Strings

That day in the snow,

my brother’s fingers had a cherry hue

chapped and raw,

my mother gave it kisses

and the veinless blood turned blue 

when he finished licking his wounds.

The music plucked from the violin

sounded like seeds popping from grapes

he had to swallow whole,

and my brother was the one I heard wailing

that day in the hospital,

when the whistle of the radio rung high

over the ringing of his head.

It cuts deep into the forest

where all voices are muffled,

my brother wanders into winter, deaf

to the song drifting on the wind—

touch, leaving through his laugh—

numb, his cold fingers—

bound on the strings.