What my brother's brownness means to him, and: On the men of this family: To their future lovers, and: First Grade Autobiography

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What my brother's brownness means to him, and: On the men of this family: To their future lovers, and: First Grade Autobiography Natasha Pepperl (bio) What my brother's brownness means to him Nothing. As in nopreference for the thick Persian stews that grew him tall.As in no scars from my mother—scared of the English words convulsing in her Farsithroat—how she'd heave screams of you're stupid at us just for beingsomething she had created. My brother and I are the only members of our familywho share the same shade of brown—that's how it can happen. My dad sees us as white, he didn't see my sister starving.Most people don't have good vision— a friend recently said that I'm whiteas fuck. Here's a brown education on being American: my mother spoons food to punishher mouth in front of the fridge until she sees the bottom of the plasticcontainers every time we return home. [End Page 42] My brother calls our mother foreign when people ask him to explain his existence.See how my mother shrinks in front of men the silence she tends to carefully as a bruise,the warmth of my nephew's hand as his legs shutter from a gunshot to the head.My brother joined the Navy to choose his exit wounds. This country doesn't convulsewhen a brown boy dies. Nothing. [End Page 43] On the men of this family: To their future lovers These men are West Virginia pickaxe, fluent in uprooting and the duration of heat before a harvest. How hands can dancealong to an old folk tune crooning of betrayal. Meaning don't yell or else they'll go south bouncing like loose change. For they, too, are the glint of hardened clay and salt on the brow. Go ahead and rest your head on those rocky shoulders come homeafter a day's hard work. Meaning root with your cheek until you find the soft spot of flesh between tendons and be greeted by the day's sheen. What I mean to say is, collect your warmth [End Page 44] before you learn how Septembers spread to deliver stillborns and leaves crumble to be lost, a fluency in pondering blood under fingernails and lighted living rooms.Meaning, these men know their ghosts by name: a buried father who wrote their mother you are my flower in the sidewalk crack—and a nephew they watched swell in his death. What I mean to say is, after the second murder my man plants a red apple tree as a sign of hope. His body tense as he strikes pickaxe against the earth—all her heavenless thingsglinting in the sun on the run before a buck scapes his rooting antlers against the wispy trunk and teeths the leaves. The men respond with a hedge of wire. But come spring, the tree's buds are met with ice—and unfurl in scars. [End Page 45] First Grade Autobiography After Donika Kelly's "Fourth Grade Autobiography" We live in Montgomery, Alabama.Our backyard is crownedwith a prehistoric treewrapped in vines. My favorite things:brother, that monstroustree, and dad towing uson his bike. We marvelup hills, at his muscles. Once mom screams she's lostour baby sister, who turns upswallowed by greenery and darkof under the deck. We don't believe in Santa, wedon't believe in monsters.We believe the devil hungersto steal our tender hearts. Everything swarms of humidity and cockroachesand mosquitos. I slap my legsand watch blood run in tears. [End Page 46] Once my brother and I build airballoons with black trashbags and laundry ventexhales to floatbeyond our tree. We are too young to nameescape, or its rootsor the berries of our othertree—how they kissour teeth. [End Page 47] Natasha Pepperl Natasha Pepperl's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review, The Meadow, The Maynard, The Anti-Languorous Project, and elsewhere. She hosts Just As Special, a foster...