Hole in the Wall by Andrea Seek

The Hole in the Wall


Hole in the wall:
Where my brother sits.
An uncle tried to kill my aunt in the course of the divorce,
So the family shuns him still.
But he visits my brother in jail,
And everyone agrees that’s a damn fine thing to do.

Hole in the wall,
Where my brother waits.
My Grandfather lost a cowboy friend, Herb Mink,
An ordinary death,
But an old, now rare, boyhood friend,
Who roped coyotes in the sagebrush ocean a hundred years ago,
Rented me a rain hat while we hunted deer between the Bonnie and the Brace,
Stuttered monumentally,
Kindest man you’d ever meet.

Where my Grandfather comes from, you might see a guy was hurt,
But you’d never ask how. He won’t say and
You just don’t.

But a guy in jail hurts all the time,
Waits there at the hole in the wall,
Doesn’t have anyplace he has to get to right now,
Or at least, no place that he can get, anyway.
So my Grandfather reminisces to him,
On those little phones, thru those scratched-up plastic windows,
At the hole in the wall,
Because sure, he could use a visitor,
And everyone agrees that’s a damn fine thing to do.