stumbled
                                          into
                darkness,

whispered

   Dylan, are you there? I'm listening               

and I listened so hard
I heard concrete
   sizzle

moonlight blister
                         
stars rip the sky's black fabric

    I listened until I heard
             you say
 
       I'm here.  I can hear you, Shan

    and as always I ached for
       us both
                  to be glad

so I told you how
      our sisters and I
  huddled
      in the dingy mortuary
flipped

            through the heavy
      book to pick
 the right image
     for your service notes

    we saw jesus
 in a luminous grove

jesus with a little
      boy on his knee

smiling up—
how hysterical
                to paste your face
 over the child's,
see you gazing up, the gentle eyes—

and when the funeral director left
  the room
                   all at once we burst
                                            
                                      into laughter
           
and Dylan, you laughed so hard
I cried
   yeah, you said, you so should
  have fucking done it!!!

I smiled
  into the blur,

    hot moon
           bloating

heaven

                hell
                     
     I am not going crazy
       I am in Utah, in Wellsville

today is the 15th of July

__

"The Conversation with My Brother" is about my brother, Dylan Alexander Thomas, who drank himself to death at age 24. Dylan loved Jack Black and Tenacious D. [This] is a link to Tenacious D's "Tribute," one of the songs we played at Dylan's funeral.