Rich Youmans
My Brother’s Keeper
She hears the muffler first—pop-pop-pop-pop-pop—louder as the Plymouth nears the corner where kids yell and scream in the hydrant’s gush. She stops folding the laundry; a work shirt hangs limp in her hands. Warren doesn’t move from his lounger or lower his newspaper. But his knuckles tighten. Pop-Pop-POP-POP—
after the hawk's cry a new quiet
The car door whinges open. Warren folds the paper in two and heaves himself upright. For a moment he stands there, his gray eyes resting on the shirt’s washed-out denim. “You could say no this time,” she tells him. He just turns and walks to the screen door, stares through the mesh. The face that appears on the other side is nearly a mirror image. The same blunt chin and nose, the same gray eyes. Except one eye is swollen. The one that always winked. That always got him in trouble.
high noon slowly shadows edge toward night
Just a few words, as always, before Warren reaches for his wallet. She sometimes wonders if they can hear each other’s thoughts, a language learned in the womb. Back in high school, her friends used to tease her for dating a twin: How do you know you’re with the right one? She’d smile—I’ll never tell—but she knew from the beginning. Warren was the steady one, the strong one. Most times. She grips the shirt tighter.
double helix. . . adding another twist of bitter
About the Author
Rich Youmans lives on Cape Cod with his wife, Alice. His books include All the Windows Lit (Snapshot Press, 2017) and Head-On (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2018). He is also the co-author, with Roberta Beary and Lew Watts, of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023).