My Uncle Stan.

My Uncle Stan

My Uncle Stan-
Paints the room upstairs blue.
His hands are torn like wildflowers;
He calmly paints and it is storming outside.
My Uncle Stan-
Has a blue truck. It sits in the driveway,
Humming quietly.

The neighbors wonder what my uncle is
Doing.
I tell them proudly,
Gesturing with my hands-
Using wide arcs, using dance methods
I was taught at dance class.

My Uncle Stan-
He was a new man after he got
Married.
He is not depressed.
He enjoys smoking cigarettes and
Long walks on the beach,
And baking cookies for his grandchildren.
He is eating lunch on the porch,
Thinking about the woman he met
At the grocery store.

He thinks she is poetry.
She would not come back.
He wishes his wife would not come back.
She was stubborn as a mule and
Ugly; a large mole on her chin.
Sometimes, he told himself she had a double
Chin to make himself feel better after
They fought, after they made love and fought
Again, trying to fix their broken…thingy.
The thingy wasn’t broken.
They were broken.