Nearer
A poem for my oldest brother, Steven Thomas Judge (1959-2013), who suffered, lived, and loved with schizophrenia for 34 brave and beautiful years.
Nearer
for my brother Steve
I woke to my brother’s voice,
“Walk naked with me.”
There’s no forgetting the sight of him
bouncing down Main Street,
heels, strangely, never touching
pavement. He was reed thin
and impossibly limber,
as if his bones had soaked
in vinegar. His body jerked
up and down, up and down—
I thought of a marionette,
strings rising to the sky—
his eyes, sidelong, fearful.
I closed mine and tried
to remember my brother
before his mind went wrong.
But I couldn’t. When I opened
them he was nearer. His eyes
softened, the fear lifted.
For a moment he was again
who he was born to be, the young
man with golden hair who carried me
home with a broken leg a lifetime
ago. “Take me to Mercy,” he said.
