Driving to rural Georgia
Too many years missing
Uncle Cliff.
After Viet Nam.
He hit the sod
With a pension
And bad leg.
To raise hogs, grow maize.
Apple trees.
Stay by his-self.
Reading novels
Philip Marlowe.
Easy Rawlins
Zane Grey.
But the bourbon
Came in good supply
Pyramid of dead ones
Always in the woodshed.
Had one woman
Mary Lee, half-breed
With Cherokee.
Stayed four springs.
Cooked, mopped.
Not interested in a kid.
One in the oven before Cliff.
Miscarried, and that
Guy ran off to Memphis
With his steel guitar.
I left the asphalt
For a bumpy, pock-marked
Gravel and weeds.
Seven more miles.
Numbers of emaciated cattle.
One runaway sow got
In my way. SCREECH.
And here was his laneway
Orange Geargia earth everywhere.
Dilapidated chipped Allis Chalmers
Missing one fender.
Cliff seated.
on the porch with husk broom
By the screen door
And a Cooper’s hawk.
Tethered to the rail.
Screen door groaned
As my uncle went for two glasses.
No smiling apparent.
Merle Haggard on the old radio.
Next to a potted cactus.
Only welcome there was.
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