“LSD melts the ego,”

the received wisdom, almost cliché,

“fosters a feeling of oneness,

an ecstatic spiritual communion.”

---

One day in the woods

in Potawatomi Rapids,

my brothers and I took it together,

young men clustered around

the immortal age of twenty.

Normally the sibling politics dominated among us –

who was favored by the parents,

who was allied with whom;

often it was my twin and me together

against our older deputy sheriff brother,

though David had a way 

of setting Bob and me against each other

to further his own ends.

---

But this day we were all companions –

yes, on a “trip” –

we sat in the middle of the rutted road

basking in the afternoon sun

sifting down through the tall trees.

---

Somebody came along in a car –

a distant relative –

stopped to pass the time.

But then, as one,

we brothers souled out together,

something so hilarious about the scene.

---

Bemused, our cousin looked at us,

an arm draped out of the driver’s side window.

“I must have said something funny,”

he commented, perhaps wanting

to be included.

---

We laughed all the harder.

He drove on,

and we were one,

my brothers and I.