When My Brother Tells Me I'm Obsessed with Sadness

it’s hard not to be obsessed with your own shadow
I don’t tell him     he is right      and wrong
he is     looking up into a tree      deep
in the woods     at a bird he tries to match

with the one in the field guide     a bird
just too far away to see       the silver and rust
of its plumage      but one he cups his hands
to whistle at regardless     I don’t tell him

I love him       and that’s why when he calls me
by the wrong name       I will always answer