When I was tentacled by jellies

swimming in the Severn,

I writhed and cried,

turned white as C-major,

was doused in white vinegar,

smelled like sautéed spinach.

That was when I thought heaven

would be living on a houseboat with a basset hound,

or on a yacht on the Potomac,

when I convinced my brother

my parents were really just big otters

dressed up in convincing costumes.

But when he was writhing,

whining, stung and crying,

I told him the jellies were tenderizing him,

softening him for Thanksgiving

which (for them) was sometime in July.

That was when he believed

every word I said, when my father explained to him

what a little brother is, when

he spent the whole night howling:

don’t eat me.