Target​

Issue 16

When he came along, my baby brother turned me into a
           a big sister, wanting to keep him safe.
 
In first grade, while day dreaming, his little burr head
           was slammed in a heavy door by a fellow student.
 
He got bird poop in his buzzcut
           playing Cowboys and Indians,
 
suffered a concussion from a hard jar on the ice.
           At a football game, confetti would lodge in his eye.
 
Later, as a young adult, his neck ached,
           his brain flamed with fever.
 
It was almost as if he sent out infrared rays sensed by rattlesnakes
           waiting to strike in the absence of light.  
 
Later, his active mind led him to a Ph.D. in Chemistry,
           provoking him to concoct, spool out, test,
 
invent and patent advanced coatings
           for extreme environments.     Now, a stroke.
 
Thrust back to a time before he could ask for water,
           or scratch an itch.
 
His boat adrift on a lake,
           ​artillery flashes of lightning overhead.

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Katherine Edgren has two books of poetry: Keeping Out the Noise, (Kelsay Books) and The Grain Beneath the Gloss, (Finishing Line Press,) plus two chapbooks. Her work has appeared in Coe Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Light, Hanging Loose Press, Orchards Poetry Journal, The Brussels Review, Third Wednesday, among others. She headed up a department at University Health Service, and served as a Project Manager through the University of Michigan, and as an Ann Arbor City Councilmember. She is a retired social worker and a grandmother of four.

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