POEM - Lee, Lou & Lon

My wife said it was time

I needed to write a poem

One about my brothers

That’s a hard thing to do

You can get in a lot of trouble

Siblings are those people you love

Despite what you know about them

            And you know enough to destroy them

So it is treacherous ground

I could start with Lon

The precocious youngest brother

Always seemed to get weird injuries

Had polyps as a young kid

A severed tendon in his finger

            When someone closed a lid on it

Bumps and bruises galore

One time my mom  was talking to him

Asked him why he got hurt so much

His response was brilliant

He said in his matter of fact way

"When you have brains and bones, things happen"

Then there is Quinn

            A different breed from his other brothers

Quinn was the sporty one

            The one who actually participated in school

Played in the band

            Tried to get good grades

The perfect middle child

A position he usurped from Lee

Got nick-named Lou by the Tucson gang

So he would match the other two boys

Quinn noticed what was going on

            Wanted something better

Just a hair less distracted

            Than the rest of his A.D.D. family

What about that kid Lee?

            He seems so nice a normal now

But we used to have to leash him up

Could climb anything to get a cookie

The only one to get the cops called on him

Twice

The first time he ran off to a friend’s house

Was gone for hours

Inspired a full blown search party

Then next time was by association

His friend had light fingers

            And he was detained, but not charged

It probably didn’t help he had just shaved his head

All bald, except for a ponytail

Growing right out of the top of his forehead