Laine Abrahamsen

When the forth test still showed that she was pregnant she pulled out his cardboard boxes he'd left behind and found fifteen tapes.

This was Brian's way of haunting everything he'd ever touched.

She finished the letter and called Sarah for his new address.

Smoking up her stow-away cigarettes, she pressed play and listened to his old journals.
He was not one for privacy, his scraping voice;
an unfriendly and poetically partial recap.

She pressed pause and threw up.
Pressed the stamp to her tounge and pushed it down.

Through the old speakers he told her that he would miss holding her as she slept.

When the second tape snapped its end she changed tape and went for a drive.
The car interior echoed her snoring and his voice telling her a story about how wonderful it would have been.

Sarah sat upset beside her scraping the car-seat leather with her finger-nails.
Her brother would be gone for a long time,
this followed a very clear pattern.

These tapes, his DNA, snapped and always someone else left to rewind.
A worthy legacy passed down as they both kissed him goodbye

for now,

and now Laine would stand by as the footprints in the snow slowly disappeared.