sudoku for my uncle

these days, how do you keep
your numbers? i remember us
standing in squares like 
goldfish neighbors. everything
was pencils. we would sit
in your side of the house 
playing sudoku. newspaper smelling books.
i don't know 
where you went or when.
we would drive into a 6 like
a dinosaur throat. added our faces
together to get biology. sometimes
our kin words are not enough
to convey our griefs. you lived 
on the other side of a wall.
i put my ear there to hear
all your numbers. so many twos,
the number of teeth you had lost to 
fireworks. then seven, how old i was
when you said you would teach me
how to paint. i made just one flower
on a thin green neck. we drew
squares around it. captured the colors
& turned them into siblings.
these days you don't talk in anything
but eights. round towers. me,
the top bunk & you the bottom.
driving your car to my heel. 
i knock on your door. all those 0s. 
tell me we can play without 
adding anything. spill numbers
like words unspoken. open
the doors to our little cauldrons. 
a swimming pool without calculation.
i keep telling you to visit
& then i don't tell you where i live. 
i do not even remember 
how to do the puzzles. i think i want
to learn again but only if you promise
we are the same people as we were
ten years ago. i know you cannot promise.
instead, let's talk in numbers. 
a have been saving a seven 
in case it rains. a little awning. 
the sun, a 9's head in the clouds.