We got there in the early afternoon
By a car low on gas and a bad back right wheel.
It was Thanksgiving, and I wrote.
My name down on the back of a Whole Foods receipt
Because I was having trouble remembering the
Double-clap and the lazy double L.

I have been trying to read more poetry.
And yet
My stanzas
Still come out like that.

The royal, we appreciate the energy.

There was my grandma's newly painted house.
There was my father, and I's grifted palm tree.
There were my uncle's five cars.
All parked on the ****-filled crack and mild sidewalk.
There was the sound of the neighborhood dogs.
All fighting for the honor of their owners
Who only really loved one-fourth of them.

I started to cry after I put the car in park.
I was terrified. This shocked her because I was one.
To only cry when I was really drunk.

"Are you really drunk?" she asked me, patting me on my back as if I was choking.

"I feel I'm saying hello and goodbye at the same time," I said.

Then I opened the door and said, of course not, not yet.

The gate was creaky, and the young black dog.
Was excited
Like they always were.
The one white one, the one my uncle got took from my neighbor,
Just stared at me with the absence of something.
That knew they wanted to love
But didn't know how to ask or even receive it.

My grandma wrapped up because of the wind.
She was all smiles as she talked about being ready to die.

Being forced to be outside in nature
Is not always pleasant, especially when the alternative
Is killing from an accidental posture.

I had two beers for the price of one.
And listened to bird sounds on Youtube.
That my uncle explained brought tropical birds:

"The really fancy ones," he explained.

Then he pointed to a dead pigeon a hawk
Had left the day before
And stripped me of my Esquire magazine perspective.
Of fancy
And recalled where the hell I came from.

For some reason,
I brought up Veterans Day.
A ripple of guilt
Snaked over the glass patio table,
Over the leek and chive stuffing,
The Pilsner beer,
The homemade cranberry sauce,
The too-thick gravy and the burnt turkey, only to land
On my uncle's ears, who said:

"Dad always told me, When I'm dead boy
You go and **** on my grave! Man like me
Needs a shower whatever way he can get!"

I nodded as she winced, and grandma said nothing.
My dad was inside cooking as usual.
One of the dogs, the young small black one
Excitedly mounted the brain dead white one
And ****** and ****** until the black one realized
He wasn't ready for physical love.

An anecdote spilled out of my mouth
About how I traveled to Normandy and saw
Art of the boats and the men and he, my grandpa,
That drove on D-Day.

My tale fell on deaf ears.

"Yeah, I went to Dad's grave," my uncle said. "And I beheaded him and skinned him as he asked. The man had a lot of requests."

"No, he didn't," Grandma insisted. "He no do that."

"I put a new skin on him," my uncle assured her. "Ain't going to leave my man skinless."

We had bad pie and left ten minutes after.
We didn't hug, so don't ask.
As we waved goodbye, I noticed a smudge of food.
On my dad's bulbous gut.
He had been very excited about his new couch.

"It takes up the whole living room! You and your sister can sleep in every corner of the thing and not touch feet!"

I did not cry as I pulled into the street but
I wept at home
In the shower
Scrubbing away the off-chance or the possibility or the
What-if-I-did-this of that

Family-packed afternoon.