A AUNT ROSE

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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 left bony leg
limping down the long hall in Newark on the running carpet
           past the grand piano
                      in the day room
                                 where the parties are
   and I sang Spanish loyalist songs
        in a high squeaky voice
           (hysterical) the commitee 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 Lincold 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 Calomine
           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 the Liveright's gone out of business
The Attic of the Past and Everlasting Minute are out of print
           Uncle Harry sold his last silk stockings
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

Paris 1958

© Allen Ginsberg
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© E-publisher LiterNet, 04.07.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010