Maria Hiers

When Reason Reaches Its Limit

That morning on television
a weatherman warned us
not to shoot at the hurricane
Over his pancakes my father muttered
who could be that stupid
Whenever faced with a disaster
he would knead his rosary
while pacing the garage treadmill
Two irrational actions
that were just different fronds on the palm tree trembling
beyond our little window above the sink 

The night before my brother had stayed up painting
I knew this because I heard
the bruising rock music he cranked up when he was
Sometimes he let me glance at the canvases
hidden in his closet
all full of storming blotches
Of his talent my father always spit
that stuff looks like a five-year-old made it 

In the hours between that and breakfast
my brother had shot himself
with a pistol stuffed under our old christening gowns
The instrument that extinguished
those fires a lightning strike once lit
in the lush forests of his brain
The masterpiece he had sprayed the walls with
was hard to understand
so my father hated it

________________________________________________________________________________________

Maria Hiers is pursuing her MFA in poetry at the University of Houston. She is from Tampa, Florida. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Hare’s Paw Literary Magazine and Harpur Palate.