reburying my great uncle in the attic
next to his brother--

i can't remember if we found
your mass grave in the philippines
or somewhere in thailand
but my mom found it on
the internet a few years after 
my grandfather, your brother died--
we looked at a garden of
white crosses grown
in a photograph on the boxy computer
screen-- i was four years old
& we kept your triangle-folded
american flag on the bottom
shelf of a bookcase in the attic--
i liked to spin it like a top--
pluck out the box with the
purple heart & pin it on the 
chest of stuffed elephants
& polka-dotted dogs--
the indigo kiss-- a bruise
from god-- the kind of goodbye
letter that sits heavy 
in the bottom of an envelope--
when my grandfather returned from
world war II
his family had moved--
he walked up to his door step
to find a different home
glow from a window & pondered if
all this time he himself had 
turned into a ghost--
he briefly recalled teaching his
brother, you, to kick the coal
off the top of the freight cars 
down by the railroad tracks
to heat the house when cold snapped
in november--
he wondered who was taller
as he walked ponderous down
a back street in south philadelphia--
we buried my grandfather in the
attic-- a jar of ashes & he mumbles 
about the war in the cracked knuckles
of the house as heat rattles
through it's bones in november--
it was our family in the window
on the door step that night--
my brother with a encyclopedia
of military weapons in his lap &
me eating a slice of my mother's banana
bread from the counter--
we invited him inside
but he walked away-- he didn't
want to go home without a brother--
so i'm here-- a plane ride away from
anywhere we could pretend to come
from-- at a white cross in
thailand or the philippines
or your real bones still sinking
into the dirk of okinawa
where we presume you were shot--
i stand there & think of something
to ask you about but all
i know about you is in
the corners of a folded 
american flag & a royal purple
heart-- i ask you if you
eat banana bread or if your mother
forgets to water the herb bushes
she keeps on the porch-- i
sit down-- i packed us sandwiches--
i figured you would eat something
like tuna salad-- no i didn't
want to share-- i ate before
i left-- i wanted to ask 
you if there was something you
left out of the letters-- if there 
was ever something you wanted to
tell someone that you thought about
in the time since you saw
my grandfather, your brother--
you're still taking your time
to answer-- we could chew slowly
because we were dead-- well i was
just pretending to be dead so
we could talk-- 
you didn't want to leave with
me even though you had enjoyed
the change of conversation--
i knew about the family curse of coming
home to a different house--
to find your name has a new address--
this one is a perched on a hill
outside a town called kutztown that
you probably have never heard of--
i told you the house has a painted green 
& maroon porch now & on warm nights
in the summer your brother will
sit outside in a neon blue lawn chair
& wait for you--
i brought you a jar for you to 
bury yourself in-- we're going 
to the attic where unfinished 
letters are written--
i uproot the white cross--
fill my pockets with
the remnants of your bones
on a hill in okinawa-- mixed with
bullet shells & singed grass--
my brother turns the page to his
book on military weapons--
i dangle my feet from the bar stool
at the counter &
we listen to you & my grandfather,
your brother 
unearth your body's ashes 
in the attic--