even as I sat, holding the telephone,

wishing my brother would come back.

I keep telling myself he’s gone forever,

but it’s so hard to accept.

He was always rescuing things

when we were kids—injured cats, birds,

even a German shepherd

who had been known to bite without provocation.

I used to tease him by singing,

“Patrick Kevin’s going to Heaven.”

I wonder if he made it,

or if he’s suspended between the life

that didn’t mean much to him

and the death that means everything to me?

He was such a good boy.

He would have been a better man, if only . . .

After our parents died

when I was fifteen going on twenty-five

and he was twelve, we raised ourselves.

No one else had the time.

It’s a busy world out there

the addicts tell me and I believe them

because I know.

I bet they’re lining up at Smitty’s

crack house right now to score.

I should be there to arrest someone,

but I’ve turned in my badge and gun

and come downtown to search this crater

for some sign of Pat,

even if it’s only a feeling

that he’s still around in spirit at least,

if not in body.

There’re just a few of us

who won’t give up.

With our shovels, picks and garden tools

we dig among the hunks of steel,

the concrete and remnants of people

who went to work one day

and vanished into our memories.

I dread finding him and dread I won’t

as I choke from the fumes less poisonous

than the hope that keeps me awake at night,

but I can’t give up.

He’d do the same for me.

Patrick Kevin Herlihy, I repeat under my breath

as I uncover another credit card

and a wallet with something that looks

suspiciously like blackened flesh fused to it.

I turn them in and return to digging

until faint from the effort and fumes, I collapse.

Two other searchers take me by each arm

and help me to a chair,

but I don’t stay there long.

After a candy bar and a glass of water,

I’m back at my task.

On the job, I never questioned what I was.

I had my role to play

in the day to day give

and mostly take of the criminals

who inhabited my world,

but this sixty acres is a city of ghosts

and I don’t know where I stand with them.

When I arrived this morning,

nothing greeted me but the wind

and a grackle making a din

as it pecked and scratched

at flat, charred patches of ground.

Maybe it’s a good sign

that the birds have returned,

a sign of rebirth. But whose? I wonder,

as I stare at my bruised hands.

Last year, I solved the robbery

of a palm reader.

As a lark, I let her read my lines.