The Gate

BY MARIE HOWE

I had no idea

that the gate

I would step through

to finally enter this world

would be the space

my brother’s body made.

He was a little taller than me:

a young man

but grown, himself by then,

done at twenty-eight,

having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse

under the cold and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for,

he used to say to me.

And I’d say,

What?

And he’d say,

This—

holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I’d say,

What?

And he’d say,

This,

sort of looking around.