What my brother’s brownness means to him

Nothing. As in no
preference for the thick Persian

stews that grew him tall.
As in no scars from my mother—scared

of the English words convulsing in her Farsi
throat—how she'd heave

screams of you're stupid at us just for being
something she had created.

My brother and I are the only members of our family
who share the same shade of brown—that's how

it can happen. My dad sees us as white

he didn't see my sister starving.
Most people don't have good vision—

a friend recently said you’re white
as fuck. Here's a brown education on being

American: my mother spoons food to punish
her mouth in front of the fridge

until she sees the bottom of the plastic
containers each time we return home.

My brother calls our mother foreign

when people ask him to explain his existence.
See how my mother shrinks in front of men

the silence she tends to carefully as a bruise
the warmth of my nephew's hand

as his legs shutter from a gunshot to the head.
My brother joined the Navy to choose his exit

wounds. This country doesn't convulse
when a brown boy dies. Nothing.

A version of this poem first appeared in Appalachian Review.