Poetry: Selections from Brittany Micka-Foos

Consideration

On the day my brother killed himself, I stood outside the locked door of his apartment waiting to get in. After the police left, I went inside and saw the sign. On a whiteboard propped on a chair, he’d hand-written, “Caution: Body upstairs. Do NOT resuscitate.” 

 

Back at my house, Dad said, “Oh that was Jesse, considerate until the end.” 

 

I did not feel considered. Not at having to clean up his apartment. Not at having to dispose of his drugs, his moldy food, his blood-stained sheets, crumpled up on the bed where he laid, finally once and for all. Not at having to bear witness to him wheeled out, a brother-shaped bag. But I said nothing. My brother was a locked door. My brother was a warning, neatly lettered and emphatic, but too late. 

 

Dad also said, “You should write about him. A tribute.”

 

You obviously haven’t read my writing, I thought but did not say. The words just hung around, empty dead things.

Nightmares and Dreams

1.

I look over my brother’s shoulder. His back is facing me. 

He is typing at his computer.

He is searching for nooses. 

He is searching for poisons. 

 

He chokes at the dinner table. Chokes on his sadness. 

At first, I try to talk him out of it. At some point

I remember he is already dead. 

 

I ask why

I never remember his response

I did love you though, he says,

through unwilling teeth

 

I say I can barely stand it here. Now that you’re gone.

He repeats back, I can barely stand it here...

Dream brother is nothing but an echo chamber. 

 

2.

In my reincarnation dreams, my brother comes back 

as a cat or crow or goldfish 

I won at the fair

who dies as soon as I put him in a bowl

each time I did  

I knew he could die 

immediately or live 30 years

 

3.

A ceremony for my brother. The FBI is here. A video plays on repeat, projected against the wall. Footage of my brother’s last day: ambling through an old European city, past bombed-out buildings. He crosses a bridge, throws a stick in a river, watches it float away. He does this over and over, an empty loop. An agent glares at me—Do you see it now?

 

4.

In dreams, my brother is sullen, easily angered, unreachable as ever.  He is nothing but a wall of refusal. 

 

I go to his apartment. It is Monday, one week before I know he dies. I grab his hand from across the table. He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. I say I know what you are planning. I say all the things I wish I had said in waking life: Talk to me. Give me more time. He looks back at me with glued-up eyes. Don’t you know what you’ve already done, he says, and pulls his hand away. 

 

5. I know he is going to die, and I am scheming to keep him. We visit a bookstore with a green exterior, a narrow entryway that opens up like a cavern. My brother trails behind me, does not want to engage. I show him trinkets, struggling to coax some joy out of him. He tells me these things are cheap, flimsy. He tells me what I already know. I turn to look at pencil pouches and—poof—he is gone.

The Body

You’ve turned black and blue

I see it under your fingers

taking root, blooming in the soft pink 

of your nail bed. Your bed, where they found 

you crumpled up. Between Grandma’s quilt 

and bloodied sheets, curled in on yourself 

so deeply you could not return

even if—if—you wanted

 

I don’t know what you wanted

 

I don’t know the body 

that lies on the slab 

half-tucked like a child asleep

hands laid out so we see Saturn

marked on your forearm, the simple

black lines, bearing witness

 

this dead thing was once my brother

 

I can’t unsee those deep 

creases someone has glued 

the orbs of your eyes closed

mortuary concealer obscures 

the blood that congealed below 

the skin’s surface, once simmering

 

this too is evidence: you had laid there for some time

 

They fitted you with a baseball cap

covered the stitching of your skull 

you wear an old Microsoft shirt 

taken from your car. I touched your chest. 

It felt like a wall. Full of something

hard and obstinate. Cold like a secret

 

the body cannot lie. Here is proof of the violence

inflicted upon it. Eyes sealed shut. 

 

Mom thanks the mortician.

“He looks great.”

The Half-Grave, Part II

This body is a doomed territory 

I don’t need the dirty sparrows 

or the rustling oak to remind me 

of life’s weak grip. I remember 

each time I pass the cemetery, witness 

your grave through seasons. Leaves shroud

a small pumpkin at Halloween. Snow 

on stone. Spring grass growing thick around the edges. 

In June, a pilgrimage of yellowjackets

and the scent of rotting flowers. 

 

I want to believe what you wrote. 

That you’re free. And yet—

this box. The marble truth of it

the space you inhabit 

10 x 6 x 4. Same as me, tethered to this spot 

under the maple tree just off Lakeway, down 

the road that leads to Mom’s. 

I’ve passed here countless times,

never imagined it would be you.

 

The yellowjackets hover over the lilies 

they left for you. 

 

I know it is just a box. Only ash. It is not a metaphor. 

Not a judgment. So why do I feel I must unlock it? 

Why must I reach into this reluctant soil

only to find graves 

all the way down

Brittany Micka-Foos is the author of the chapbook a litany of words as fragile as window glass (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and the short story collection It's No Fun Anymore (forthcoming, Apprentice House Press, 2025). Her work has been published in Ninth Letter, Witness Magazine, NonBinary Review, Hobart, and elsewhere.