Our kid
Salvador Dali Portrait of my Dead Brother, 1963
I’m sorry, Pete, that I rarely visit where your remains
Were laid that terrible day in December 1996. You are often
In my heart. Forty-one is no age to part from all you love.
I know how brave you were. When your kidneys finally
Packed up you were twenty-one and in love. I only found
Out after you’d died, that you’d written to the girl and set
Her free by telling her you no longer loved her. Such a brave, loving lie.
Tears me apart when I think of your sacrifice, I can hardly breath.
Sometimes I think of what I’d give you if we could meet again:
I’d fix up a final ton up, a tear about on a Harley-Davidson.
I’d arrange a year without being tied to the kidney machine.
I’d wish you a brother wiser and kinder and less selfish than I.
We’d walk through the peak district on a sunny day in May
I’d buy you a pint at one of the pubs you drank at before your life
Caved in and buried you away. Most of all, I’d give you
A luckier start in life, free from undiagnosed, congenital kidney disease.
I’d sing you your favourite Elvis song. Grant you a much longer time to live.
Send you a kiss from our mum, a hand shake from dad.
I’d watch you hold your grandniece, Charlotte, born on April
Fool’s Day, 2019. But I can do nothing for you, Pete, except
Swear to you that when we do meet again, I will make amends.
Were laid that terrible day in December 1996. You are often
In my heart. Forty-one is no age to part from all you love.
I know how brave you were. When your kidneys finally
Packed up you were twenty-one and in love. I only found
Out after you’d died, that you’d written to the girl and set
Her free by telling her you no longer loved her. Such a brave, loving lie.
Tears me apart when I think of your sacrifice, I can hardly breath.
Sometimes I think of what I’d give you if we could meet again:
I’d fix up a final ton up, a tear about on a Harley-Davidson.
I’d arrange a year without being tied to the kidney machine.
I’d wish you a brother wiser and kinder and less selfish than I.
We’d walk through the peak district on a sunny day in May
I’d buy you a pint at one of the pubs you drank at before your life
Caved in and buried you away. Most of all, I’d give you
A luckier start in life, free from undiagnosed, congenital kidney disease.
I’d sing you your favourite Elvis song. Grant you a much longer time to live.
Send you a kiss from our mum, a hand shake from dad.
I’d watch you hold your grandniece, Charlotte, born on April
Fool’s Day, 2019. But I can do nothing for you, Pete, except
Swear to you that when we do meet again, I will make amends.
John Marks
Tue 31st May 2022 01:23
Thank YOU dear Keith.
“Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and
is of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face” – St. Francis of Assisi