Uncle Danny Breaks Grandpa’s Leg
A shattered femur in the
summer. Sweat soaks through, a
liquid pain. These are things
we don’t discuss over
breakfast or Thanksgiving.
A phone rings shrill into
the dusk. Mom moans the name
of her older brother
and looks through me. Her mouth
opens like a cavern
and I can’t look away.
A shudder, and the earth
shakes deep down in foundation.
When my dead uncle called
to us, a skeleton
under the sand, he rode
bare-back on the pale horse
whose name has always been
Addiction. His brother,
Danny, cries in ugly gasps
and locks himself into
the bathroom, knocking all
the potpourri onto
the floor.
I see through Mom’s
white fingers Grandpa breaking
down the door. He asks to
hold his only living
son, but the monster in
our living room attacks,
a slender arm still bulging
beneath a tourniquet.