One Bachelor's Life

Under an arch of October sky my uncle liked to walk the back
woods of New Hampshire wearing his Irish tweed cap --
his peppered eyebrows tweaked like twin caterpillars above tinted bifocals.

When we summered in Keene in the A-frame house on the Mad River
he'd hide behind bushes, pretend someone grabbed him. We laughed as he pulled himself down with his own arm, struggling against his own might.

He drove the back streets of Boston--Fanuel Hall, Back Bay, Kenmore--sold monogrammed t-shirts, pens--stopped to eat at Jimmy's or in the North End; he called every waitress by name.

Then one Christmas Eve he stormed out of the Cape house, left snow
dust devils in his Dodge's wake, all because we wouldn't take the dollars
he pressed in our hands for an offering at mass.

He sped four hours north on 93 to drive away that rage, while
in a cold kitchen we argued about where he'd gone, and if he'd return.
He called the next morning, contrite, said he'd be back in time for dinner.

I've walked under the same arch of starless night, imagined him asleep
in a paneled room in his boarding house, the walnut swallowing him.
A table lamp, bought from a retired teacher at a flea market, burns drab

yellow on walls, on photographs of us stuck with push pins above his desk.
Hiw twin bed, hard and lumpy, army issue. A library hardcover rests
open in his lap, eyes shut, snoring while the Celtics announcer drones.

One March Manchester evening as he curled up on cool hardwood floors,
his back hugging the wall, he hardly felt the brisk wind creep
through the floorboards like ghosts; only felt his liver bleeding.

His will, dated 1963, lay graying in cardboard boxes among bills. Plastic-
wrapped t-shirts. A Herald. Tweed cap. Bifocals askew on his forehead,
seeing two worlds, while we sat in a moonless kitchen
waiting for news of him and snow filled up the world.