For My Brother Allan

You told me once, my poems made me seem
more human than my fiction will admit.
Admit to me, to sleep perchance to dream
is noble in the mind as to submit.
Great stolid bull, unbending rooted rock,
indomitable king upon the board,
your words and mine alike are writ’ in chalk.
The hammer falls; the taunt conceals a sword.
God rolled your dice. That I could cast His down–
a money-changer tossed into the street–
I’d give my head, to break His pyrite crown
and mend your pieces shattered at my feet.
I’d give to you my head–its holes, its horns.
I’d wear your holy, bloody crown of thorns.