I REMEMBER YOU
. . .riding your Irish Mail
down Merrimac Avenue
like it was a race car,
building your own orange crate scooter,
hiding a comic book
under your cello music
while you "practiced",
teaching me prayers by the crack of light
coming through the bedroom door.

You were the one
who ran the elevator at Grandma's house
(never mind that it was her pantry),
knew where she kept the butter cookies,
always remembered to ask 
if she had any Blackjack gum.

You wound up her Victrola
and let it run down, soprano
to bass, ran fastest 
to ring the dinner bell, bong
bong, bong, bong,
bong, bong, bong, bong.

It was your gun that put all the bee-bees
under my bed,
you who pushed up with your feet
when I slept in the upper bunk,
almost rolling me out.

I had a doll named Bluebell,
you had Teddy, the well-worn bear
and a collection of Jerry Todd
and Poppy Ott books.

I remember you shooting darts
at the ceiling when you had measles
leaving black circles from the suction cups,
feeding lambs quarter to the calf named Jack
when we visited the farm in Indiana,
drawing cartoons in my sketch book,
bleeding when you picked up Dad's
hunting knife and cut yourself.

You were the darer, the explorer,
the one who got in trouble,
the one who didn't care if you did.

			Lucille Hamilton Murphy - for my brother Jack