Uncle Joe had a photographic memory.
Things like birth and death dates hung like jewels
on the many-branched family tree
he tended.
In random conversation
with those among us
still living, people and
their dates were important
to him as were
their places.
His mind
held a map of world facts
& histories,
wars
geographies, the lessons
of generals. He could recall
the day of the week, the exact date,
the restaurant, the sub par food service,
and the hotel
where he stayed 45 years ago on
a rare visit to meet his grand
nieces in Chapel Hill. He
knew the way. He’d navigated
bigger city streets by
some miracle of
having studied and retained
Triple A
street guides with a magnifier
20 years prior.
He eschewed help
refused his cane, though
he could not see the sidewalk
in front of him. He
had superpowers
and good luck.
and no names for
his strangeness in those
days before I was
born. And after. And so, he was
just Joe.
“That’s just Joe”,
the elders said. And while
I never understood him or
warmed to his bombast,
his trivia sharing, I knew
he just wanted to keep
track of our comings and goings,
offer us Almanacs on birthdays,
the Guinness Book
of World Records at
Christmas.
It was through Joe
I learned a man
pulled a train with
his beard, and
there were
shorter
longer
wider
largest
smallest
tallest
things
and
highest
oldest
most of
rarest
fastest
slowest
kinds of
eaters and talkers
and people and animals
who knew how to balance
plates and basketballs
on the tip
of a toothbrush,
while walking in the dark
using echolocation.
Early Morning Poems 