The Aunts imitation Sanjana Mahesh

The Aunts revised imitation

I don’t like it when they get together

Too knowledgeable about happenings

No occurrences remain a secret

Loose lips is our family’s common trait

From sour honey dipped lips, secrets spill

Fear governs the love paid towards these queens

Always appearing so innocently

Schemes of the most competitive nature

Gushing, overflowing with compliments

achievements of their own offspring announced

shamelessly ostentatious yet still

remaining dignified throughout always

from comparing to declaring winners

the cousins decided at the age of five

to ignore their divide and conquering

family reunions can be quite scary

when there’s intimidation on the dinner plate

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.