Cal Freeman
Elegy for Uncle Christopher
The day you died the skies opened
and they canceled the Tigers game.
I listened to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
and thought about that morning
at the Pink Pony in Mackinac,
how you walked in, called me out,
and switched me off of coffee.
You proceeded to get drunk and swear
so much I had to take the bartender
aside and explain that you were an ironworker
from Detroit up here to watch
a childhood friend you were in love with
marry a rich guy nobody liked
to keep us from getting tossed.
You slept through the wedding,
staggering out of the bed and breakfast
in a bathrobe and work boots
around midnight, swigging from
a bottle of chianti (she sent one
to every room of every downstate guest),
barely avoiding a collision
with a coach and horse. I guess we get
the best we can of what we’ve got.
Tomorrow’s a doubleheader
with cocktails and Gordon Lightfoot songs
before the evening game. Those Saturday nights
in Corktown, you’d throw your money
like lilies on the Gaelic League stage
until I sang the song.
You always reminded me it was to Zug,
that manmade island in Detroit,
not Cleveland, where the fated ship
was headed when it sank.