Big Brother | Poem by Seymour Shubin

Ruthie began to call me
Her big brother
Which used to bother me at first
Because she was some six years older than me
But then I understood
Her son had died at twenty-two
And her husband a year before
And now her daughter…
Give me hope, she begged.
Oh how I tried.
But I was only her big brother
Not, goddamn it, God

Why Me