Survivor Man 

that summer we watched a lot of Survivor Man.
next to each other on the sunken-in polka dot couch
my brother & i talked about 
where we would want to go to survive.
my brother wanted to go to Bermuda because
mom & dad had gone there once & they told us
about the singing of the frogs at night.
i asked him what that had to do with survival 
& he said that it would at least be 
a nice to place to die if he had to.
he was maybe seven & i was ten.  
on commercial breaks the television told us 
we were young & beautiful & we should
make something of a summer. sometimes i felt like
it was just my brother & i in the house
alone all day together watching 
survivor man pry open fruit with a knife.
watching survivor man crawl into 
the carcass of a camel to stay warm.
on a raft survivor man told us he was
at risk of hypothermia & my brother
asked me what that meant & i told him
it meant freezing to death. i said 
i would rather die quickly like from
falling off a cliff. he said it might not
be so bad. i said he thought he might have been
close to hypothermia at recess the last year.
outside waves of heat were emanating
from the asphalt. sometimes we took breaks
to eat ice pops on the porch. 
the artificial sugary water dyed our tongues.
one day my brother asked me to promise 
i wouldn't grow up to be like
survivor man. he didn't want me
going places so dangerous. he said
he didn't want to watch me on tv
& feel afraid for me.
i told him not to be afraid for survivor man
because he knew what he was doing. 
he knew what plants could be cooked 
& eaten. he knew how to catch
a rattle snake & cook it over a fire--
the meat all fresh & white. the dirt 
on his fingers. he washes his face
in a pool of water. he drinks 
from a stream. he climbs a tree
to find a place to sleep. around 4pm
our dad would get home. we would
change the channel to cartoons & 
take our places next to each other
as if nothing had happened.
as if survivor man hadn't almost died
so many times that day. as if there
weren't dangerous wildernesses
i would want so badly to survive in.