The Uncles

by Sharon Kunde

The corn schwitzes a dizzy

haze of midges and gnats.

I ride the grass path

in a rattling truck of uncles,

one end of their tough noggins

stubble rough, the other hugged

by mesh hats plainspoken

with pragmatic affiliations:

John Deere, Dekalb, Pioneer.

We camp by the crik. Cousins

weave in and out of the firelight,

my sister wedges a red guitar

beneath her arm. The uncles leak cheap

beer and tan their airsacs with wholesome smoke.

When the loamy bank shears

beneath my sneakers, it is an uncle’s

pan-sized hand that clamps

my wrist and hoists me up and away

from the crik’s cold kiss.

At dawn, a fog of farts

beads the cab’s windows.

I eat leathery eggs

cooked in pig grease.

My pale little face shines.

Sharon Kunde is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of California, Irvine. Her research, which centers on nineteenth-century American literature, shares with her poetry a concern with embodiment, relationality, nonhuman animals, and ma… — Sharon Kunde is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of California, Irvine. Her research, which centers on nineteenth-century American literature, shares with her poetry a concern with embodiment, relationality, nonhuman animals, and materiality. She lives in Altadena, California, with her husband, two sons one dog, and eight chickens.