My father's sister,
The one who died
Before there was a word for it,
Was fussy with her food.
'Eat up,' they'd say to me,
Ladling a bowl with warning.
What I remember's
How she'd send me to the dairy,
Taught me to take cream,
The standing gold.
Where the jug dipped I saw its blue-milk skin
Before the surface healed.
Breath held, tongue between teeth,
I carried in the cream,
Brimmed, level,
Parallel, I knew,
With that other, Hidden horizon
Of the earth's deep
Unglaming water-table
And she, more often than not half-dressed,
Stockings, a slip, a Chinese kimono,
Would warm that cream, pour it
With crumbled melting cheese
Over a delicate white cauliflower,
Or field mushrooms
Steaming in porcelain,
Then watch us eat, relishing
Smoking her umpteenth cigarette,
Glamorous, perfumed, starved,
and Going to die.