The Saga

Aunt Alice big as a barrel, Always an old-dress smell— Sweat and rose cologne—

Was gallic when she met me, With smothering hugs and kisses, Too wet and adoring.

I'd run away from her. "Where is the child, where?" As I shook behind the juniper.

But sometimes she was fun: A casket lid undone, She cried and screamed like sixty.

For funerals were her game: Petals nearly drooping Before her happy rage.

Now my sons hide from her (Her generation's dead), Hide behind my legs.

And I must lift them up— Almost in sacrifice— To smother in her bosom.