fleas

[Cousin Kil]

FLEAS
In the hollow  -- What hollow?
dogs were howling -- Maybe a period here. I originally thought that you were still referring to the dogs with "near the sill..."
near the sill over the kitchen -- 
sink my dad could hear them attention-starved -- Not sure about this line break. Why interrupt kitchen? Interrupting the collocation "kitchen sink" causes a major hiccup in the poem, so if that's what you want than this could be good. If that's not what you want maybe you don't need the line break. That's my BS theory anyhow. Attention starved is an interesting way to describe dogs though, I sort of think.
blueticks, 
rowdy sweet dogs were howling chain-linked -- Howling again?
and he was washing dishes with his  -- I think the subject, which appears to be the father, is kind of hard to track here.
dad in the basin
while he was young
clenching carefully the soap
grandpa flashed dull arms
asked him if he saw the fleas on them
like black and tanned 
he’d been howling, reeling,
peeling in chips from
so many plastered
nightcapped evenings
he’d been clinking tumblers, sinking,
asking his boy
you see the fleas? when there were none
grandpa washed with watered scotch and
dogs howled,
sweet and starved
like father, fleas, son -- Having trouble making out what this means, but I could be having a brain fart or something. This seems to be about alcoholism and delirium tremens or something along those lines. The final line is oddly somewhat reminiscent of John Donne with the flea and the mingled blood and such. 

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Wrote this a night ago. Beat it up.

My main thing is that you may be able to use punctuation to make the subject clearer. Good luck.

Hey Brownlie, really appreciate the critique
Thanks for pointing out the punctuation issues
There's usually a lack of punctuation in my poetry because it aids the way I want the lines read: fast and ugly, (think I said this in the commentary of another poem).
That being said, I always appreciate it noted because I often miss the necessary punctuation for where I feel my pauses/breaths in the poem.
Those first lines look and sound better to me with what you suggested, I appreciate it.

In regards to the hollow, is it vital to specify? I thought it would give a light sense of location to the reader (suggesting a backcountry location), but is it terrible not to expand on it?

On the line break for sink, that's exactly what I wanted. The hiccup, at least when I read it, puts it in the rhythm I feel when reciting. Same with the "dad in the basin" line. The separation of it from the previous line is in the rhythm of the read. Does that come across? Would love to know.

Finally, on the meaning of the poem, you were pretty much spot on. I wanted to show the degradation of the father/son relationship through the father's alcoholism. "Sweet and starved" isn't there just to tie into the dogs, but to show how the father and son relationship is starved. It's desperate to be normal, but they can't even get through washing dishes together without the father's alcoholism getting in the way, making him hallucinate. The final line even, "like father, fleas, son", is worded that way to show how the alcoholism is interrupting the relationship, even in its position in the phrase. The "fleas" are sucking life from their relationship.

Hope that cleared things up, and again thanks for the critique. All the advice really truly helps.
Many thanks,
CK