Thanks to Relief Journal for publishing my essay "What My Brother Wore." Here is a brief excerpt:

We drove from Tuscany to coastal Cinque Terre, to the town of Vernazza. Midday, sunbathers draped like laundry over the black rocks, and we sat out for hours at the water’s edge—Joe, Chris, Austin and I. In a bathing suit, Joe’s body was strong and his broad chest looked so much like my dad’s, and his skin was fair and he smoked cigarettes and interrogated the snails, holding them like stretched hands into my face, and he seemed at once so much like a boy and so much like a man. We laughed like kids as Chris impersonated Pavarotti. When the sun was high, Joe was ready for a swim and he sat at the water’s edge wetting his toes, laughing in his timidity to plunge off of the rocks. In that moment I saw so many moments from his boyhood, his curiosity and caution, his sensitivity—never quite sure how the world would receive him.

The full essay can be found in the print journal, which you can purchase here.