The Aunts - Corynn Bernhardt

The Aunts - By Corynn Bernhardt

I’m indifferent when they get together

and talk like gossip on the playground, eight,

and sound like Grandma’s cupcakes and lemon

Wedges. And none of them wear hats because

those hats are not in style anymore.

And they all like to sing songs at Christmas.

They will always be the ones to ask you,

“How is your boyfriend” when you just broke up,

or ask where you were the last fam’ly meet,

Or keep a conversation going too

long when trying to get out of the house.

We are all patient, us cousins, to stay

And hold the conversation like our breath:

Patient, eager, suffocating, smiles,

like standing beneath an old willow tree.

This I remember, too, when I was young.

You must be skillful in your exit here

in a house filled with so many children.

When I look outside and see two big trees.

Although it is spring, they bear few flowers.

The cows I cannot see in the pasture.

There are four and they like to welcome me.

They are beef cows, so they are mostly black.

The first night I stayed here they kept me up

all night, but I think they were excited

to have a new neighbor to say hi to.

They are covered in mud and poop, or else

I would pet them. The neighbor kids do that.

My puppy used to say hi to them, too.

He looked just like them. I think they were friends.

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.