Avuncular viscosity ::Graphic content::
(Probably more a short story than free verse
In any case it’s true,
seen through my eyes as a child)
He was a heavy smoker sat by the fire
Coughing and wheezing hacking up phlegm
spitting it into the blazing hearth,
that hissed back contemptuously upon contact
On a rare occasion when he’d miss,
the dog would lick up the gooey mass
with a determined exuberance
A filthy habit I heard some say behind his back,
but he was always happy,
didn’t care less what others thought of him,
a real character,
anyway my whole family and I liked him
He was our uncle from rural Ireland,
we visited him and his wife
on their small farm a couple of times each year,
probably more so, when my Dad had a car that worked,
My sister and I used to make grossed out faces
at each other when he expectorated into the open
hearth of the fire,
we thought it was pretty cool, and grotesquely funny
One spit in particular is legendary,
he spat out a stringy length of gunk
but needed his fingers to help pull it away from his mouth
and direct it towards the fire,
some actually made the distance,
amazingly the dog raised his head
and caught the rest of it, happily wolfing it down,
I mean come on!
we were still in tears laughing, on the way home in the car
On later visits it seemed bits of his face
were disappearing or bandaged,
still he never complained,
his voice was almost gone anyway,
and most unusually he wasn’t smoking
I was only a kid and in those days
you weren’t supposed to ask questions,
but it didn’t stop me asking my dad,
what was happening to uncle?
He told me uncle had cancer of the mouth,
and part of his tongue and lips had to be cut away,
warning me never to smoke,
even though he had one lighting in his hand
Innocent me thought uncle’s face would grow back
and he’d be ok,
but unfortunately he died pretty soon afterwards,
Damn I used to be spellbound
watching him trying to catch his breath
and hoofing viscous gunk upon the fire,
even more so when he missed
I tried to copy him on a visit to my aunt
just after he passed away,
of course I missed the fire on purpose,
The dog never budged
My sister shook her head
I was truly ashamed!
By
David Kavanagh
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