The Aunts and Uncles
Confessions every other Saturday
took care of most problems.
Oatmeal in the double boiler
winter mornings,
potatoes in the oven at night,
peaches every summer,
the huckster hollering straaawberries
from blocks away,
an old glider creaking on the porch.
Sherry most nights for the aunts,
whiskey for the uncles
who at Christmas time
swayed in with bonuses
like Jason with the Golden Fleece.
After the war, for a few weeks,
summer cottages on the lake
with wobbly walls
that almost touched the ceilings.
And the cars that never got old:
Terraplanes and Oldsmobiles
with running boards and fins.
Masses and reunions and bridge
and all of them sitting around
after Sunday dinners,
murmuring behind screens
of cigarette smoke.
Nothing ever changed
until everything changed,
leaving us astonished
when the smoke cleared
and they were gone.
Mary Ann Larkin is a widely-published poet living in Washington D.C. and North Truro, Massachusetts. She is the author of several chapbooks and of That Deep and Steady Hum, published in 2010 by Broadkill River Press.