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I was only a kid
                        five years old
            my sister and I played on the floor
                        dropping square blocks into square holes

I remember
            my sister and I
            in the car with my mother
Driving down the grade
            until an officer stopped us
                                   "the kids shouldn't see..."
(I remember flashing lights, and paramedics, the sound of helicopters)

He was teaching me to read
                        and
                        he'd made me all these flashcards
                                    with really important words on them

In the hospital
                    his body was alive
                    but his brain was dead
                    so they took the machines away

My sister and I waited in my grandma's kitchen
                                                                    while they put him in the ground
                                                                    square blocks into square holes
                                                            

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