Marion 1

My Aunt Marion,
a petite woman with blond hair,
was the matriarch of the Wildes family
a clan of 16 brothers and sisters

she achieved that role not through power
but by simply being a natural catalyst
around which everyone else seemed to gravitate -
of all the siblings she was physically the frailest
but possessed the greatest emotional strength

she always reminded me of Doris Day
a famous actress of that time
perhaps because she styled her hair in a similar way
or because she liked singing "Que Sera Sera"
(Whatever Will Be Will Be)

Marion had infinite patience
was extremely creative,
but a terrible cook - which was unfortunate
because she hosted most of the holiday gatherings

the family relegated her to desserts and beverages
under the guise that her creativity
was better spent there than in the kitchen cooking

jello must have been the sensation of the '50s
because she always made several large trays of it -
including some with banana slices suspended inside

Growing up she always teased me about living in the country
"Farmingdale", she would say, "What kind of name is that for a town?"
(little did she suspect it was originally called Hardscrabble)
"I'd rather live in Hicksville."

and her scientific facts were always a little off the mark
she insisted that the ocean was bottomless
and that the rockets we launched into into space
were responsible for all of the weather changes
because they poked holes in the atmosphere

we had our best conversations
in the backs of cabs on the way to Chinatown
where my aunt frequently took me
for lunch whenever i visited her

after eating our meal, if we had time,
we would walk among the sidewalk vendors
and I would buy a souvenir with the money she gave me

once I bought a fake snake with a segmented body
that slithered in the air when you held it by its tail
i quickly discovered that my aunt was deathly afraid of snakes
so it rode home in the trunk of the cab - just to be safe

it's hard to say which is my fondest memory of her
but i think it was the week i spent in Brooklyn
helping her strip wall paper from the plaster walls
in the upstairs rooms of the two family house she had just purchased

it was the summer of 1969 - I was 16
the radio was playing John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance
the Viet Nam war hadn't touched me yet

and as i climbed up and down the ladder
for the thousandth time
ready to press the steamer against the wall
ready to scrape the wall paper off in strips
ready to nudge the occasional patch
that needed an extra shot of steam
and a little more encouragement
from the scraper

my aunt said - "let's break for lunch -
how about some Chinese?"
and off we went with bits and pieces
of wall paper stuck to our clothes
looking like paper mache mannequins
that had just exploded

and on the way to the restaurant
i asked her if she really thought
the ocean was bottomless...

she just looked at me and smiled