Family Reunion

Family Reunion

The boy's Great Aunt Dora planned a "cozy little gathering" of fresh-

packed cousins, aunts, uncles and other strangers

Out the door with herring-in-mustard accenting his shirt and

the loose Chihuahua lock-jaws his sleeve with a finely-barbed hunger

Blood-rusty, his shins scrape the spruce's spine climbing until,

somewhere near the top, the boy sways, sweet sap webbing his fingers

...taste of maple and butter and the iron-spice of gunpowder as he

licks his breakfast fork that Fifth-of-July morning

His eyes fuse with hers, the table keeps the girl's touch a secret---

the unthinkable allure of unknown relations