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He visits twice a year,
calls twice a month.
His seething demeanor
has made him lonelier
than he knows.
He is quite bothered
by my squeaking bathroom door.
"I never noticed it," I say.
He needs a hammer
to loosen the pin.
He pounds.
My dog cowers.
I am reminded of other men
trying to be helpful
when I hadn't asked.
My brother returns
with a rancid expression
I recognize,
surprisingly alive
in my nerve endings.
"It won't budge," he says.
I think of our childhood
bedrooms, separated by a
shared bathroom whose
doors didn't lock.
Here we are, old,
having secreted away
what we glimpsed of each other,
the same for it, and not.
"It really doesn't bother me," I say,
and take the hammer.