Knots

An overhand knot. Loop like bunny ears.
Another overhand.
With eyebrows almost meeting,
I concentrated
on the simplest
ordeal a six-year-old should ace.
How could he do it so easily? Without
even looking!
Dad smirked at me. His playful arrogance
pleased me.
His brown fingers seemed to twist and turn
like his shoelaces, tying and untying.
My lips mouthed an “O”.
 
When my brother needed to learn,
I took away the magic
that made the art alive.
My face, cold, instructing. Do this after this.
My idle fingers didn’t move. My mouth was busy,
clear words flowed from them like
lost flies.
His unsteady hands trembled, trying.
 
Show him, show.
 
I tied and untied.
My brother’s brown eyes screamed with delight,
that simple act he kept in a small
box
like how I kept my dad’s warm smirk and
the look in my brother’s
brown eyes—the little things
I treasure. The box
I open and reopen from time to time;
then I decided to close
it.
Tying around it a black ribbon.
An overhand knot. Loop like bunny ears.
Another overhand.