Salt for an Empty Chair
Steve Reilley (12/08/60-07/05/23) Salt for an Empty Chair Grief is a house with bad wiring. The lights flicker; sometimes it smells like smoke. My older brother has been gone a few years, but he keeps showing up—leaning in door frames, laughing at my worst jokes, correcting my grip on memory like it’s a baseball bat. Death took him but left his voice in the walls. I hear the hum when the night gets long. My younger brother is alive somewhere under the same sky, orbiting a different sun, returning no calls. His silence is a locked door I rapped on with bloody knuckles. I tell myself he’s building a fortress; I try not to mention I’m the moat. On my side of the family tree, the branches are thin and winter-bitten. A couple distant cousins wave from far fields like scarecrows pretending to be men. Still, I set a place for him. I pass the salt to an empty chair. I answer when the walls say my name. ----- Brothers in the walls, one breath gone, one turned away— I set his plate still. -...
