If you must know, I've never had a 'traumatic experience,' sir,
not me, not younger me. I have lucked out.
But now that you mention it, since we're both sitting here,
your office that reeks of burley's thin tar,
this reminds me (you said it was fine to ramble)
of my great-grandfather's Prince Albert cans
and his locked knee. When he slept, he kept
it perpendicular to the bed, jutting ceiling-ward
outside the sheets. Now, when you ask me to share,
I'll share, but please let me continue. These cars
seem too loud and close through the open window.
And he would snore, I tell you,
and hack up fluid at all hours, especially after
plowing the garden with the tractor. It now belongs
to my father. Great-grandfather's knee would swell
beneath his overalls. He would strip down to longjohns
and prop the useless thing by the woodstove and smoke
his Prince Albert, and I almost believed he was the man on the label
with the handlebar moustaches, some Houdini in denim
who hung up his hat along with his dogtags.
And then like magic we had him buried in churchyard
where he'd never went and prayed real hard
for his soul because mother told me to.
A few people cried, but I wasn't one.
How they got the leg to lie down in that box
I'll never know.
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