Wear

I drive my ninety-year-old uncle around the 
imposing bluffs ringing La Crosse like a rocky 
stockade on our way to the mausoleum where 
his wife of sixty-four years resides in her new  
home, and where my own mother and father  
have been for over two decades now.  He says  
he doesn’t like to come, but once we’re there, 

my uncle reaches up to tap the marble with his 
cane.  We’re here, honey.  I miss you, he says.   
I imagine my aunt’s startled blues eyes  
flickering open and shiver, my father and 
mother side by side above her, listening in.      
Dominus vobiscum, Et cum spiritu tuo.   
He tells me he’s ready to join her as we 
shuffle back to the car while I’m silently  
unwilling that wish being granted.  

On the way home, my uncle marvels about the  
workmen who cut through the limestone with  
their giant augers so long ago, bending the road  
the way deemed necessary, more impressive to him  
than the bluffs themselves, which have always been  
there, a tinge of awe in his voice as we descend  
the steep curves, my foot tapping  
the brake pedal, my eyes darting back  
to the highway, the day wearing into night. 

Jef Leisgang lives with his wife, son, daughter, and cat in an old Queen Anne in Fort Atkinson.  He manages a bookstore on Madison's East Side.  His poems have previously appeared in Plainsongs, Steam Ticket, Flint Hills Review, Free Lunch, past WFOP calendars, and elsewhere.