In between his smoke puffs,
my brother Barry said
with a fresh split lip,
“You know some Neanderthals
were redheads like me.”
“Does that make you a Neanderthal?”
“They’re our cousins.
Maybe I’m my own cousin.”
“Are we still brothers?”
A smile crept like keratin
over the rupture
in Barry’s bottom lip.
After he crushed his smoke
on the stoop
outside our family home,
we trudged back inside
to shake hands
with an onslaught
of our aunts, uncles, cousins,
mother
encased
in ironed black clothes.
They huddled in the living room,
their clipped tongues
unable to articulate
a newfangled pain.
Our father’s urn
fixed above the fireplace.
His ashes
black like his black hair
combed back
before a mirror’s
paternal reflection.