My brother does not protest in the streets, but he speaks his mind often and with certainty in a measured voice.
He is not Trumpian but says that protesting in the streets is asking for trouble.
He is not racist but thinks immigration has gone too far.
He has never been called radical left. He has no pictures of Che on his walls.
He has a biography of Margaret Thatcher on a bookcase in his hallway and has read it.
Forty years ago, he wrote me a letter. I replied. Our correspondence ended there.
My brother does not protest in the streets, but he once wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Telegraph. He was pleased that it was published.
He does not meditate. His house is free of Buddha statues, singing bowls and books of sutras. He is not vegetarian. He does not listen to Leonard Cohen or Billy Bragg.
My brother found God. He sent me emails about being saved until I told him I didn’t want to be.
He is not a misogynist, nor is he an incel or a survivalist. His partner is not Latina or Vietnamese or Thai or much younger than him. She is firmly from Surrey, is widowed, owns a detached house and drinks pink gins.
My brother is neither a runner nor a cyclist. He drives a Range Rover and has a vintage Jaguar in his garage.
He is not convinced that global warming is real but he does recycle and has an impressive vegetable garden.
My brother does not protest in the streets. He says people need to take responsibility for themselves.
His money is sensibly invested in bonds, ETFs and property. He eschews bitcoin. He is generous with his chosen charities.
My brother is not bald. He has a fine head of silver-grey hair which gives him a passing resemblance to Pierce Brosnan.
He dresses in beige corduroys during the week and raspberry trousers on Sundays.
My brother is very upset about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Let the side down he says, though he would not protest in the streets.
My brother does not gamble but he plays bridge Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. When I visited briefly from Australia, he did not have time to meet me. It was a Wednesday. I did not protest.
Mike Hopkins’ previous lives include many years as an IT analyst and much shorter spells as an up-and-coming slam poet and an English teacher in Vietnam. His chapbooks include Selfish Bastards (Garron Publishing) and Mistaken for a Real Poet (New Poets 16, Wakefield Press). His poems have appeared in journals in Australia, the USA, Ireland, Scotland and continental Europe, including Rattle, Australian Poetry Journal and Award-Winning Australian Writing. He has featured on ABC Radio National and Radio Adelaide. His work has been rejected by many prestigious journals. He blogs those rejected poems at mistakenforarealpoet.wordpress.com and on Substack at @mistakenforarealpoet. He lives near the beach in Adelaide and sometimes protests in the streets.