GLEN ARMSTRONG

Lunch with Uncle G.

While a great but dubious rain

stains sidewalks and ruins hats,

my sister’s children double

in size, absorbing water

and some kind of funky awareness

of the suddenness

with which a mood can change.

I speak to these young men

of strange lighting effects

and books retrieved from puddles.

The first nephew speaks:

“You’re a funny old man, Uncle G.

But I can hear you weeping sometimes

during nature documentaries.”

The second nephew speaks:

“I thought that was some prehistoric bird,

disrupting the filmmaker’s work off-camera.”

The third nephew speaks:

“No, Scrub, it is our dear uncle’s

brilliance and pending downfall ignited

by twigs and yearlings.”

Now boys, the soil has been riddled

by time and moisture time and again.

To think and to notice one

must “slow one’s roll,” so to speak.

One must huddle under awnings

and wait for the world to return

to its previous texture and scale.

Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. His latest book is Night School: Selected Early Poems.