Tuesday Poem: previously published by The Paterson Literary Review in 2005

Aunt Aggie Closes Her Eyes

and her soul slips away

like a bolt of dotted Swiss on the breeze

flying higher and higher

toward a Magellanic Cloud.

Good-bye, I say.

Hope you don’t mind

that I conjured up such flimsy stuff.

It’s just that you were gossamer

compared to our workman’s

poplin and kitchen oilcloth.

I see her circling the moon with my father,

Aunt Mary trailing behind them, and Uncle Joe.

She offers a wispy hand to my mother,

pours some tea and sympathy

like she always did,

then whirls, a dizzy mist

toward the grim

outline of her parents,

the thin familiar

arms of Uncle Allen.

 I wave. Thanks, I shout,

especially for your knock-knock jokes,

and for not taking sides when things fell apart.

For serving us your too small Sunday roasts,

so we had to stop for burgers

on the way home, my parents joking

and laughing instead of fighting.

You never added salt to anything.

You gave me my first Pop Tart,

and taught me how to face death

with a heart so full of love

there’s no room left for fear.

I’ll  always remember.

She giggles and shakes her head,

then flies off to ride the Milky Way,

glad to be as passé as Christmas tinsel.

Thus the heavy basket

I’ve carried all my life

becomes a little bit lighter.