From For Your Safety Please Hold On. Published by Nightwood Editions in 2014.

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Funny bone of every family. Wears

the same old skull T-shirts for thirty years

to unnerve his mother. Grunts his monosyllabic

moniker—Bob, Tom or Lou—at whomever

he’s introduced to. Go ahead, he winks. Pull

his finger. Braid his chest hair. Top of the odd-

job totem pole. King of the all-you-can-eat.

Aficionado of the naked lady tattoo. Won third

in a moustache competition, punched out first

place. Too young to have fought in Nam,

but knows a guy who knows a guy with no

thumbs. Did time a bunch of times—asks, You 

need meth, machine guns, snake’s blood?

Late to your wedding in an alligator tuxedo,

he staggers straight into the open bar. Resurfaces

for his too-loud lecture on the hullabaloo

of marriage. And he’d know from his three, all 

great ladies, mind you. He bends the conversation

to confess he’s a lesbian. Wrestles his nephews

one-armed and wins, tosses squealing nieces.

Chases them around the buffet, brandishing

dentures. Roughhouse inventor. Unexpected

best friend of the religious aunt, he pecks her

cheek as they hobble the two-step. Begins

his stories, I had a buddy up in Fort St. James,

summering in Timbuktu.  Has buddies for every

occasion. You can tell it’ll be long yarn,

the way his eyes roll up into the water spot

on the ceiling above your head. He yammers

the nails, beats the dead horse, bags the wind,

blows it hot and beery into your face.

It’s a slow shit, man, he whistles, staring

cockeyed into the world’s faulty wiring.

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