Family Reunion

The afternoon sun falls across the whole family, 
crowded along the deck like crows, peering down, 
and lining the driveway as I prepare to fight 

my uncle. He pulls a pair of rust-licked foils 
he found at some junk store from his truck,
excited as I’ve ever seen him. This bout  

was his idea. He is going to lose, but 
he doesn’t know that yet. I strap on 
my pale plastron, slide into a white jacket,

and, as always at these functions, I wear 
a mask, blinking behind the black film of mesh,
watching him bounce about, boyish but twice 

my size, unprotected but for his own dented helmet, 
his arms bare and exposed. My uncle, Patriots 
disciple and patriot, lover of God 

and this violent country. We may never 
truly know each other. I have never been brave enough 
to stand up to him, do not want to hurt him today

—just beat him, make him see me 
for who I am. I face him and salute, lower 
into en garde, feel every eye on me. I breathe, wait 

for his attack, which comes almost immediately,
unwieldy and predictable. I parry, metal clattering
like my anger. He slashes when he should thrust,

and I realize he does not really know how to fence
—just how to swing a sword. He hoards weapons,
loves the possibility of their power, but he has not

been in a real fight in a long time. In his mind, 
this is just a game, a movie: he is Errol Flynn, 
and I am whatever unnamed guard he has to slice 

off the screen. On the sidelines, the spectators cheer
and caw, place bets, urge us on. There is a kind of violence 
beneath every sport, and my relatives love each other

violently, would kill for one another, if they had to. 
Every Christmas, all the cousins play Spoons,
wrestle on the rug over bits of metal. They shoot

hoops in the driveway, goals on the lawn, they fire
air rifles off the back porch. They join the team, 
become athletes. They join the military, take aim 

at the enemy. My family does not see me as
their enemy, but still, I have never quite been 
on their team. Every conversation is a competition,

and finally, after years of keeping out of their contests,
I am speaking a language they understand. Finally,
a game to gather around, a way to connect with me.

Now, in this adrenaline-soaked passing 
of the seconds, I am alive to every bodily tremor, 
every opening in my uncle’s guard. I become

a scientist. I finger my instrument with care, 
know each corner of its physics, how to sink 
into gravity’s embrace, let momentum guide me.

Every fight is an experiment, but my body 
has been beaten into knowing the principles.
I know what wood brought down on thumb does. 

I’ve seen blades snap and skin bruise and 
I am tired of being seen by my family in one way, 
of owing them anything, even this pitiful duel.

Go on, Owen, get him! I hear someone yell, 
and I lunge. And even when my tip sinks 
into my uncle’s side, I am not sure who has won.

OWEN ELPHICK is a writer, performer, and creator from Connecticut, currently based in the Philadelphia area. He is the author of Thoughts & Prayers (Wilde Press, 2019), a book-length sequence of poems centered around gun violence in America. His work has been published in The Hartford Courant, CORRIDORS, Gauge, Stork, and Concrete, among other places. He is the Assistant Editor for The Hard Work of Hope, a weekly poetry series produced by Mass Poetry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Find him on Twitter and Instagram @OwenElphick.