I should have known better
than to be the bothered big brother
with my laid back baby brother

who has survived a layoff from his job
two bouts with cancer, two teenage sons
and twenty five years of holy wedlock

I should have known why
he refuses to call me Tomas
prefers Tom, the name he knew

when we were young and growing up
on the anglo speaking streets of Seattle
searching for our Mother tongue

I should have known distance does not
make the sibling heart grow fonder
of me and the old adage:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

tomas 07