One of these days you’ll find a mouse in your gumboot,

which your brother will liberate

and release safely

in the back paddock.

He’ll tease you later, in a mean way,

because you never did get on well,

but you’ll always remember how he coaxed the mouse

from your boot and left it

to find a home in the grass.

You could be kinder to him; you don’t know that yet.

That’s all right. Later, when he has moved to a new country,

you will

and sometimes you’ll wish you could return

to afternoons watching him play video games

after school, before he and you grew up, when he still

made up absurd songs just to annoy you,

and was near enough

to pluck mice out of your shoes.