Thanksgiving has always meant more to me
than the holiday we celebrate happily
seated among broadened family.
It also means Angelo’s birthday.
He was born two years before I
on Thanksgiving Day,
and every 7 years or so
we could celebrate both joys
on the same day, November 28.
He has been gone too long,
yet memory remains
of a big brother
like no other.
A Sicilian American boy born
American to the bone,
Italian to the heart
whose need to be the Prince
was never questioned
except by me,
his pesty sister
who believed
she was his equal
in every way
on every day
in every play
trailing the gangly group of boys
across the street
down the alley
up the trees
over the banks
into the river
despite the words
“GO HOME”
where I would
have to play alone.
And so he let me stay.
annarino writes 