(auntnorma)

Showing me her family
photos, she told me
how her aunt norma
ripped out the people
she didn’t like.
Immediately I wish
I could have known
this woman.
She did it, saving
only the image of
her husband, the one
became a baptist preacher,
made a baptist preacher
is how they put it.

I have done the same
thing, only to remove
myself. When someone
got a my bad side,
or my hair was ugly,
or I had gained weight.

“Bless her heart,
she says, “she was
unique.”
I wish someone had
put it that way
sooner.
Maybe then there
would be some record
of me having lived
my life.

10/10/99 idea
written -1/3/00