The ashe from the fire place mingled

with the sweet potato soup wafting

from the stove top and settling through the kitchen.

Stirring the iron pot with his left hand and thumbing

through a yellowed novel with his right.

Jordan read in a voice steady as silver

to my sister and I while they cooked.

The entire book, all three hundred and thirty six pages

he read to us on that sleeting evening

with wind bending to meet our warm windows.

And I grew to know him not from formal introduction

but by the way words dripped from his lips like the fleeting light.

I saw his patience and love for my sister, to read to her like that

and hot cider spread its warmth like wings in my belly

the way he so quickly became my brother.