To Aunt Rose

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 Brontë 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