I too have an Uncle Jake
although he passed away of Parkinson's
in the eighties.  His hands shook
at the table and they were getting in the way
so my mother suggested he remove them.
In dreams the lack of a hand or foot
proves to be no obstacle
but in real life it can be difficult 
for a man like Uncle Jake who was a nuclear physicist
and needed to manipulate electrons,
especially those oddballs that possessed
an inordinate desire to travel from one shell
to another, deserting an otherwise happy molecule
to make hydrogen, argon, or helium.
In Styrofoam models
molecules seem stable, toothpicks hold
one ball to another,
but then there are always sexceptions,
which is a word I have just invented
and one Uncle Jake would have liked.
He would have laughed,
shaking like gravel
and Mother would have cackled and looked away
as the wire-haired terrier humped her leg
in their Kensington living room.
Never neutered, she'd whisper later.
Of all he said during gatherings of the clan
I can only remember
two things:  I wish I'd had more children.
One's own dirt doesn't stink.