For My Brother by Natasha Rao
For My Brother
Natasha RaoI have never known a closeness like that.
—Anne CarsonThe backseat
of dad’s car, warm limbs
pressing, stale sleep smell
in our mouths. Whenever
heads touched, our
dreams were related
by blood.
It all was a kind of magic
then.
Now, I get off the plane
and keep waiting for the part
where you need me again.
We eat Turkish delight
wrapped in tissue paper,
and the gaunt moon
salivates. Years ago we stood
side by side
on the driveway at night,
moths spilling white dust
onto our palms.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Offing, July 2018.
ABOUT NATASHA RAO
Natasha Rao is the author of Latitude, which was selected by Ada Limón as the winner of the 2021 APR/Honickman First Book Prize. The recipient of a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, she has also received fellowships from Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has received additional support from the Community of Writers, the Hambidge Center, and the VCCA. (Source)
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ENDNOTES
- This is Day 24 of The Sealey Challenge 2026—a community challenge to read one book of poetry a day for the month of August, named after Nicole Sealey.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: family • memory • nostalgia • Or browse the index
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