My Dear Aunts (Imitation 1) Levi Kyllo

My Dear Aunts (Imitation of The Aunts)

by Levi Kyllo

 

I think back to a time my aunts were young

Full of energy, youth still lingering

The air so fresh and pure when they’re around

Their laughs are distinct, but still similar

A feeling of home they have brought tonight

 

Money not an issue, never a penny in sight

They know how to have fun on starless nights

It was their father you see, who taught them well

He raised them good, he raised them right, he did

What he could to make his daughters see the light

 

The aunts’ brothers helped shape them, yes they did

Maybe even more so than the parents ever did

With four older brothers, trouble is to be expected

Which is why each one of them turned out to be such tough kids

Growing on up, their paths start to take shape

 

One goes to college, the others hesitate

Money matters now, they begin to see

How the system works, how cruel it can be

Years go by, like a beggar on the street

Expecting something from society

Because somehow society owes them

 

Now back to the present, the deed already done

They have bloomed and blossomed five years since

Ready or not, it came with a loud bang

Like fireworks in July, or a Rockies’ game

They should be glad this happened, not gloomy nor sad

It re-centered their focus on the good times to be had

Debt behind them, relationships in front

Their sights are set on family and love

Obstacles overcome, tears set aside

In remembrance of their brother, they all sigh.

 

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The Aunts

by Joyce Sutphen

 

I like it when they get together

and talk in voices that sound

like apple trees and grape vines,

 

and some of them wear hats

and go to Arizona in the winter,

and they all like to play cards.

 

They will always be the ones

who say “It is time to go now,”

even as we linger at the door,

 

or stand by the waiting cars, they

remember someone—an uncle we

never knew—and sigh, all

 

of them together, like wind

in the oak trees behind the farm

where they grew up—a place

 

I remember—especially

the hen house and the soft

clucking that filled the sunlit yard.