Spaceboy

I invented my own brother once
when he could not invent himself

I created him out of bits and pieces,
out of diagnoses and sleepless nights

And then I read him to an empty room
while standing at an unplugged mic

I don’t remember what I wrote
only that my brother did bounce

around that room and over the still chairs

that outside a kid played a Velvet Underground
song to himself on his guitar, singing poorly,

and on the sidewalk girls I knew
smoked very purposeful cigarettes

I tried to tell them about my invented
brother and all the space there is between

stars, how galaxies are mainly empty
like the inside of atoms, but they know

that atoms can break apart, split, but not
always of their own volition, so this is why

they must break me apart themselves

____

John Findura is the author of the poetry collection Submerged (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and the forthcoming chapbook Useful Shrapnel (2022). His work appears in numerous journals including Verse, Fourteen Hills, Copper Nickel, Forklift, Ohio, Sixth Finch, and Prelude. He lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife and daughters.