To Aunt Rose Lyrics

Aunt Rose-now-might I see you
with your thin face and buck tooth smile and pain

of rheumatism-and a long black heavy shoe

for your bony left leg
limping down the long hall in Newark on the running carpet

past the black grand piano

in the day room

where the parties were
and I sang Spanish loyalist songs
in a high squeaky voice

(hysterical) the committee listening
while you limped around the room

collected the money-
Aunt Honey, Uncle Sam, a stranger with a cloth arm

in his pocket

and huge young bald head

of Abraham Lincoln Brigade

-your long sad face

your tears of sexual frustration

(what smothered sobs and bony hips

under the pillows of Osborne Terrace)
-the time I stood on the toilet seat naked

and you powdered my thighs with calamine

against the poison ivy-my tender

and shamed first black curled hairs
what were you thinking in secret heart then

knowing me a man already-
and I an ignorant girl of family silence on the thin pedestal of my legs in the bathroom-Museum of Newark.

Aunt Rose
Hitler is dead, Hitler is in Eternity; Hitler is with

Tamburlane and Emily Bronte

Though I see you walking still, a ghost on Osborne Terrace

down the long dark hall to the front door
limping a little with a pinched smile

in what must have been a silken

flower dress
welcoming my father, the Poet, on his visit to Newark

-see you arriving in the living room

dancing on your crippled leg
and clapping hands his book

had been accepted by Liveright

Hitler is dead and Liveright's gone out of business
The Attic of the Past and Everlasting Minute are out of print

Uncle Harry sold his last silk stocking
Claire quit interpretive dancing school

Buba sits a wrinkled monument in Old

Ladies Home blinking at new babies

last time I saw you was the hospital

pale skull protruding under ashen skin

blue veined unconscious girl

in an oxygen tent
the war in Spain has ended long ago

Aunt Rose

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