Your Brother's Eyes example essay topic

How To Watch Your Brother Die By Micheal Lassel This poignant poem was first published in 1985 in "Poems for the Lost and Un-Lost Boys" a book of collected poems by Micheal Lassel. The poem begins as the main character, the brother of the soon to be deceased titular sibling, is contacted and told his brother has a very short time to live. The health brother immediately embarks on a trip to spend the few precious moments left in his brother's life by his side. This tale is delivered in the structure as a poem, perhaps to emphasize the crescendos of pathos and to isolate the emotional moments in the deceiving simplicity of its delivery.

The following stanza finds the main character as he is entering his ailing brother's hospital room, only to be met by his sibling's gay lover, ever vigilant, by his side: "Watch the lover's eye as they stare into your brother's eyes as they stare into space. Wonder what they see there. Remember the time he was jealous and opened your eyebrow with a sharp stick. Forgive him out loud even if he can't understand you.

Realize the scar will be all that's left of him". This particularly strong stanza reveals the protagonist's inner struggle to attempts to empathize with the lover's obvious sorrow and somewhat bittersweet as the man recalls a scar, given to him by his dying brother, in more innocent times. There is a bit of foreshadowing here as the reader starts to sense the irony of forgiveness granted at a time when words would be meaningless. "Watch the tears well up in his eyes.

Say, 'I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be the lover of another man. ' Hear him say, 'It's like a wife, only the commitment is deeper because the odds against you are so much greater. ' " This is an excellent metaphor the poet uses to properly convey the emotional strength and validity of this "non-traditional" couple's love. The metaphor also drives home the point of the constant scrutiny and obstacles such a relationship must endure in the face of a disapproving society. The poem follows the main character as he joins his brother's lover in a quest to Mexico in order to find unapproved drugs that might help his brother live longer, as well as detailing the frustration of their eventual failure.

During the course of this quest, he experiences first-hand the ignorance and intolerance towards homosexuals as he is mistaken for one at the Mexico / USA border crossing; "Begin to grow loud. Feel the lover's hand on your arm restraining you. See in the guard's eye how much can a man hate another man. Say to the lover, 'How can you stand it.

' Hear him say, 'You get used to it. ' Think of one of your children getting used to another man's hatred". This stanza conveys the main character's growing impatience with the ignorance and intolerance of the world his brother has to live, and inevitably die, in. This is driven home by the protagonist's thoughts of his children being subject to such irrational hatred.

Death finally claims the ailing brother and he is finally at peace from a world that never understood him and a brother that is only know beginning to understand him. The surviving brother once again faces ignorance and fear in the form of an uninformed funeral director: "Stare at the face of the funeral director when he tells you he will not embalm the body for fear of contamination. Let him see in your eyes how much a man can hate another man" This stanza brings into focus the extent of AIDS phobia, which in 1985, was still early in the disease's public history. It was a time of ignorance and intolerance. A time of people dying alone and uncared for in their homes, misunderstood and transformed into pariahs by a mysterious "gay" disease. As the poem reaches is end, the brother is confronted by his dead sibling's lover who tells him to: " 'Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him after he told you.

He did. ' " The final stanza finds the main character on a plane heading home to his family, thoughts swirling in his head as he stares into the bottom of a scotch glass: "Fly first class and drink scotch. Stroke your split eyebrow with a finger and think of your brother alive. Smile at the memory and think how your children will feel in your arms, warm and friendly and without challenge".

This is a poignant conclusion to what has been an emotional journey of discovery for the man. He finally comes to terms with his deceased brother's alternate lifestyle, but alas it is too late. He thinks of holding his children, "without challenge", in stark contrast to the discomfort he felt in supporting and accepting his dead brother, and perhaps thinking of when he and his sibling were children, before life got too complicated to reconcile. The poet uses an interesting form of narration. The reader is never really clear who the narrator is, but after reading it a few times I was left with the sense that the narrator is in fact the dying brother. I came to this conclusion because the narrator has insight into the internal dialogues of all the characters in the play, something that only a disembodies spirit, perhaps, would have access to.

All in all, the poem is delivered almost in the form of a cautionary tale of tolerance and understanding. The lesson learned is that although we may not always understand or accept the way a person lives their life, it should be celebrated that they lived that life on their terms while they could.