Matriarch of Springwater Flats

My wild-eyed uncle drank so much
he forgot the dimensions of his house.
Walked off the green-painted porch
and broke his one good leg.

He punched the neighbor's dog
who thought his writhing was play.
The poor thing howled at the end of its chain,
groomed itself calm beneath the holly scrub.
When the ambulance bounced up on the curb
he was screaming for another drink.
His sweat-soaked body had a street light sheen.

I dreamed for weeks of his strapped-down arms,
the sharp holly leaves stuck to his skin like ticks.
Sheriff's deputies came late to the party, gathered in
the shadows of the yard
looking for dope and counting the open cans of beer.
Their sniggering dried up in the heat
of my Grandmother's moonlight stare.

No one dared offer her a ride to the ER.
No one said, Momma, you should really come in.
Laughter slipped through the kitchen window
as one young deputy clacked toward his car,
a crushed beer can making a high heel of his boot.
He never took his hand from the butt of his gun.
She never looked him directly in the eye.
She never looked away.