What My Uncle’s Dead Lovers Left Behind

A house with a pool missing tiles.

Another house, foundation cracked,

the whole left half off-kilter,

like a face mid-stroke.

A Buick with a vinyl roof, a dented Datsun truck,

a Pekingese that needed to be shaved

each summer. He did it

himself. A leather sofa, mismatched recliners,

a china hutch with no china,

a rusted Mustang fastback suspended

on blocks, the project car

of  his last boyfriend. My uncle, negative,

untouched by the disease. A king

of worthless things. His spare bedroom

glutted, impossible

to enter, the bed buckling

under two microwaves,

boxes of old Playgirls,

a tower of coffee-table books,

a Pioneer turntable, stacks of records,

a case of unopened Billy Beer,

a milk crate filled with drag show trophies—

Miss Eastern Carolina, Miss

Congeniality, Third Runner-Up.