Sunrise

Sunrise
Sunrise on Sunset Beach

Thursday, December 31, 2020

The Essential Wisdom of Cool Aunts

 A memory of Dorothy Gilmore

She ran the Rec Center on Rowan Street,

hosting booze-free youth nights 

spun from a jukebox and local bands. 


To me she was only Aunt Dot, 

but my friends remember Mrs. G, 

everyone’s cool aunt 


whose kitchen was always open 

to teens in need of commiseration, 

which was how she caught word 


of my early flirtation with Rio,

a mysterious pixie with lightning eyes 

who wore her skirts short and sweaters tight. 


I loved the rush of her wild allure 

and she was keen on my letter jacket – 

we might’ve made it work, 


but Aunt Dot was wise. 

I can’t recall her actual words, 

but still feel the inflection: 


You were made for so much more. 

The girl is not your kind. 

By which she could’ve meant ‘cool.’ 


I kept the jacket and lost the girl 

who would be old and gray by now, 

not an abuela who nods by the fire, 


but a wayward girl’s great aunt 

who weaves a spell from shadowed years 

to cast away the sting of tears 


and tame the fear her beauty bore: 

You’re so much more than meets his eye. 

The boy is not your kind. 









Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Grandpa Gilmore Left Me a Poem

I’d heard he earned a medal somehow 
late in the Great War, capturing a squad, 
or perhaps a platoon of German troops. 

Hell, he said, through plumes of blue smoke 
rising from an end-table ashtray littered 
with unfiltered Camels. Grandpa paused. 

The Friday night fights flickered.
We listened to the Gillette jingle 
as welterweights bounced in their corners. 

Hell, I was lost in the fog,  when a shell 
burst nearby. I like t'shit'm'britches –
a bell pierced the ring-side shouts –

so I jumped in the nearest trench 
which was full of … Granpa winked 
and shot a sly smile … full of the finest 

German gentlemen, who threw up 
their hands before I could raise mine. 
His husky laugh dissolved into coughs 

and I thought I heard scattered jeers 
as weary boxers clinched on the ropes, 
pounding to the final bell. 

Grandpa came home, but not quite 
whole, his left leg locked stiff for life. 
I’m sure he could've cursed with flair, 

but deferred for his bride. Tamed 
into temperance by stomach ulcers, 
he moved through his days with a dignified limp 

and always left a room laughing. 
We shared Grandpa’s jokes at his funeral – 
that was his gift to a too-solemn world. 

He'd left me a well-creased poem, 
a cheesy paean to partisan peace 
which I read to embittered fraternity brothers 

the week after Nixon squeaked in. I mouthed 
the earnest platitudes to weary groans, 
till eyeing our tidy Republican tribe, 

I channeled my grandpa, shot a sly smile,  
and landed the final lines –  I’ll hug your elephant 
and you kiss my ass. 

and here's a link to the post-election poem.