His new bride is inside, dancing with her fat and white-haired father.
She has brown skin that shines against the white of her dress.
Her father is talking loud over the music and letting her lead.

My brother goes to AA ever since he met this girl.
He thinks he can handle it on his own, and has
stopped by my place for a beer right after a meeting
on more than a few ocassions.

We’ve lived in Birmingham since Daddy brought us here
in the late 70s. We dragged up and down Mitchell Street
in the Bonneville we bought together in high school.

As I watch his wife inside I think about how I kissed her
more than a dozen times when we were all kids together.
I remember she used to wear cherry lip gloss, and I wonder
if my brother used to kiss her back then, too. And if he remembers that.

My brother says Birmingham can suck it right out of you.
That Birmingham killed Daddy, and that Birmingham is going 
to kill us, too.

He says it like Birmingham is this thing.

He drops the tree branch and he grabs the beer in my hand.
Just a sip, he says. Then I’m going back in there.