Improv 1 (Week 4)

Almost Intervention
Adrian Matejka

My little brother lives
in Indianapolis
with its suburban rabbits

and warrens of junkies.
The neighbor’s mutt
growls at what he knows

is there. Maybe corn
kernels and tassels dressed
up as humidity. Maybe

the thin-lipped vinyl
in the siding. I don’t know
what it means to need

something more than you
need you. My brother
shifts from today to yesterday

in a halo of weed smoke,
slides down the concrete
driveway without mom’s

permission into somebody
else’s rusted minivan. He’s
geometric, all points leading

to the same happenstance.
He is a porch swing
with the bolts loose.

Improv:
“My little brother lives
in Indianapolis
with its suburban rabbits
and warrens of junkies.”
The rain pounds through
the phone as I hold
and he opens tuna.
Applying all his force to the cut,
he sends scales across the sink.
Good with wood, better with the knife
my brother lives on shavings
he’s rabbit-holed in the drain
picking out each silver member
sucking it between the gap tooth
that clicks the receiver of
our relationship. In the neighbor’s
garage, he tells me, sleeps
a ’76 Chevrolet Caprice.
My brother wants to steal it
says he’s got the keys in his pants.
Still with fish mouth he gnaws
on plastic straps. His front porch sunburn
dressed in dollars and cents as he turns
the achy chain of a Huffy 12 speed
while Jack and Johanna spit
past in crystal Chevrolet glory.