Old barns and empty sheds
hold most of what
you need to know
of your uncles.
In the doorframe rows
of knife-nicks mark
the growth of
Jesse, Dale, and Jim.
Tacked to a low beam
like tenacious last leaves
of autumn—sepia
photos of little boys
grinning in home-cut hair
and hand-me-down clothes.
Under the stained and rutted
workbench, safe
in a tin box for half
a century—leavings:
a pack of yellowed cigarette papers
two steelies
a fishhook and home-made fly
a skeleton key
three limp, smudged ticket stubs to a movie show
a shell casing
a rusted pocketknife
a guitar pick and a chipped arrowhead
that look oddly related.
Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions — but always, the place she returned to has been made home by a dog.