Smoke Break

by Keith Gaboury

In between his smoke puffs,
my brother Barry said
with a fresh split lip,

“you know some Neanderthals
were redheads like me.”
“Does that make you a Neanderthal?” 

“They’re our cousins.
Maybe I’m my own cousin.”
“Are we still brothers?”

A smile crept like keratin
over the rupture
in Barry’s bottom lip.

After he crushed his smoke
on the stoop
outside our family home,

we trudged back inside
to shake hands
with an onslaught

of our aunts, uncles, cousins,
mother
encased

in ironed black clothes.
They huddled in the living room,
their clipped tongues

unable to articulate
a newfangled pain.
Our father’s urn

fixed above the fireplace.
His ashes
black like his black hair

combed back
before a mirror’s
paternal reflection.

---

Keith Gaboury earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. American Poetry Systems published Monetized Happiness (2025), Falkenberg Press published Still Human (2025), Kelsay Books published The Cosmos is Alive (2023), and The Pedestrian Press published Oakland, I’m Not Dead (2020). Website: keithgaboury.com