Aunt Mabel

It is right that she is loved: her courage shines

in all the maxims that she does not draw

from sixty years to warn our present joy.

In all her tales, her husband and three sons

quietly keep the graves she bought for them.

But when, to show affection for my son,

she gives him candy, who can bear her eyes?

begging from a tiny serious idol

forgiveness for the terrible gift of time

she once held out with beautiful, ignorant hands.