Poem For My Brother Randy
Spoon Jackson writes about an unacknowledged familial connection, finally acknowledged 50 years later.
Poem For My Brother Randy
by Spoon Jackson
Long time, no see We never mentioned We were brothers From the same hood Same school, the same church The same father We never mentioned out loud We were brothers Although we knew We were Same father different Mothers Long time, no see I remember the years We grew up Riding 10-speed and Sting-Ray bikes Down Route 66 from Barstow to Victorville Hiking to Calico Ghost Town down the hill Rabbit hunting and junk hauling Walking over the shaky old bridge to grade school Bottle hunting down Highway 58 We lived on different ends of the same street Crooks Street, river bottom Father had kids everywhere We never mentioned We were brothers until now Until 50 years later On the visiting application.
Spoon Jackson is a poet, writer, and artist from Barstow, California. He was sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole when he was twenty years old. You can keep up with his artist collective Rabbits of Realness by subscribing to this Substack. His poetry is collected in his book Longer Ago.