I’m angry for my brother’s television set with its lumpy men.

He is supposed to be excited for my visit.

He likes his rehab friends,

two of them play chess

under the ping pong table,

feet sticking out arbitrarily.

I hand him a bag with a cd and a book in it.

The attendant asks him to bring over the plastic.

He has two guitars and tries to play Hotel California for me.

I glaze his shelves and see a paper with writing—

Mom didn’t come visit three times when she said she would.

The room feels like a hotel, there are grey walls and wallpapered curtains.

In the courtyard through the window, some other patients smoke in a gazebo.

Collins, play something you know,

I can’t tell what you’re playing.

This is all I know, he says.

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