When He Was Alive

Julie A. Cox

Now you must write about your brother when he was alive.

—advice from a poet

He regularly left his change at the register, 

or gave it to the cashier, or threw it 

in the trash. I can’t remember for sure.

His written comments on his eighth-grade

report card: I experienced 

some perfunctory learning. It was nice. 

He wrote the name Glenn Danzig—

lead singer of The Misfits—instead 

of his own on his high school bus pass.

He performed as Pee Wee Herman

to “Tequila” in a summer talent contest—

a light-blue suit with high-water pants, 

buzzed hair, sneakers—bopping his fists 

behind and in front of himself, then

balancing on his toes while 

his arms scythed the air

convulsive as the butterfly stroke.

He lost to a squad of cheerleaders.

At a family wedding, a cousin

bet him twenty bucks he wouldn’t

sexy-dance on a table to “Muskrat Love.” 

He won the bet, but the hall owner

nearly threw him out.

He asked to see the bat hanging from

the exterior of my downtown office building— 

the bat clung as if blood-sucking the brick for two weeks.

I never got around to taking him.

The last time I saw him, he told me 

Trent Reznor seemed to be pretending pain, 

while Kurt Cobain seemed more genuine. 

On a Sunday, nearly a year to the day

of Cobain’s death, he asked Mom 

to make lasagna, his favorite, 

for supper. It was his last.