Before the Shift

I was looking for a screwdriver in the back of the drawer

and pulled out a manual for a machine we don’t own.

This photo fell out on the linoleum floor,

my brother at twenty, sitting alone.

It’s nineteen-ninety-eight and the light is all gold.

He’s wearing a shirt that I’ve never seen.

He doesn't know yet how the luck will turn cold,

or about the grey cities that wait in between.

He looks like a stranger who’s borrowing his face.

I touched the white border, leaving a print.

I want to warn him to stay in that place,

before the world took his smile and turned it to flint.