Uncles
by George Anderson
1
Big Wiff was the first to cack it
he got ‘cancer of the asshole’
as my father used to call it-
his 6’2” athletic frame
slowly reduced to shit
over eighteen excruciating months
A few weeks before his death
he drove from Grandby
a flimsy 90 pounds
he & the old man got sloshed
there were multiple stories to revisit
plenty of back slapping
and laughter from the kitchen-
reminisces about World War 2
Nova Scotia, ice hockey
& later as the night progressed
SHOUTING, ANGER
then a violent struggle-
the old man pushing Wiff jarringly
into the solid kitchen door
then sobbing
cursing his impending
DEATH
his wife Dot soon remarried
The local high school gym where he taught
for over twenty years was renamed in his honour
he was only 48
2
More than twenty five years later
Avard (aged 72) was crook and dying of liver cancer
& about the same time
we learnt his younger brother George (64)
had contracted stomach cancer.
Their lingering demises were far more distant-
happening unknown to me 10,000 kilometres away.
The first I heard of their deaths
was through local paper tributes sent by my sister in Vancouver
Avard was the larrikin of the family
he once told me in Sudbury
that he had caught a huge fish off Manitoulin Island-
it was SO BIG that when he pulled it out
the water level in the lake dropped six inches.
Always scheming/ joking-
He bet his brother George $500
he would outlast him.
3
According to my father,
Uncle George was the ‘big-shot’ of the family
as a chartered accountant from Grand Falls, Newfoundland
he would often fly to Montreal on business
he would often toss us kids quarters
& take us to the local Italian restaurant
or ice hockey games at the Montreal Forum
The old man would often suggest
in a drunken blather
how he had given up driving
because he had almost killed
his younger brother George
after drunkenly
skidding his vehicle off the road into a ditch
4
By the way- Avard won the bet- by six weeks.
June 13th, 2006 at 10:30 am
I was drawn to read this because I have the same name as the author. In my opinion this is not a poem. It is a piece of prose which has been laid out like a poem. If read aloud there are no rhythms in it, and the way the emphasis would be put on the words if read aloud has no relation to the line breaks etc used on the page.
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