Hey, there goes Uncle Who...?
Drinking that turkey
from the bottle,
canning the ham
that, crammed
into a span of time
for the sake of Mama's camera lens,
could not produce
its own fluids.

But there's Uncle Who...?
He's folding up
the Christmas tree
for next year's
Cupid's Day parade--
that's what he calls it,
brings down the hearts
and pinkened bows
for the guy in the coal chute
that everyone knows--
and everyone knows
that if you don't have a chimney,
he uses the coal chute,
and if there's no chute,
there's always the trash compactor,
and if not that,
why, never you mind that factor,
because everyone's got a door.

I'm watching Uncle Who...?
And he builds me a house of cards.
I scream in glee
and clap my hands
and down fall the Jacks, the Queens, the Kings
and all the kings' men...
Uncle Who puts the house together again.
And I swear I want a house just like that!
It's an armored pagoda, I swear,
I declare it's just a stationary tank!
I want a house
JUST like that...
only I will want a door.

Mama yells at Uncle Who...?
He's spilled some wine
or beer or vodka or bourbon
onto the rug.
It's Mama's nice white rug
that I'm not allowed to walk on.

I find myself gaping at Uncle Who...?
I can't place him anymore,
Mama's thrown him out the door,
the one that Daddy left through
just as I was born...
and it's gone again like last year
and he trudges through the snow...
sometimes, I just don't know.

When each school vacation rolls around
I look for Uncle Who...?
Mama tells me I look in vain,
my nose pressed against the frozen window pane...
I tell her I don't understand her words
and she'll just brush my hair
out of my face,
join me in looking out into that empty space
beyond our front walk.
She's right, though...
Uncle Who vanished into the snow
that last night he was with us...
but I keep expecting him to appear,
keep forgetting he's not here...
won't be coming back this year...
no dry ham,
no bottled turkey,
no fragile house of cards...

Mama took it pretty hard.
Three years of watching,
of waiting,
school vacations and me in the window...
sometimes, I just don't know what to think.

The satin lining of the lid was pink.
It reminded me of the hearts
and streamers Uncle Who put out
at Christmas, taking down our humble tree--
"Wrong holiday," (grumpy) mumbled he...
and her dress was white
like the snow...
her cheeks rosy with an eerie glow,
her lips red
like the water I found her in,
floundering in...
at the time, I didn't know why...
but at the time, I didn't know to cry.

11/13/2001

Posted on 11/13/2001
Copyright © 2024 Devon E Mattys