Aunt Judy

A prose poem

Uncle Wayne brought Judy back from Germany,

in the early 1950s, when he was stationed there

while in the army.

She must have thought to populate America

with little half-German babies.

Three boys and three girls, all propped up

like little soldiers, smiling,

their bright brown eyes just like their mother’s.

Three sets of Hansels and Gretels.

 

They spoke German at home,

and English everywhere else.

That must have seemed strange for a child.

Bitte. Yes, please.

Ich weiss nicht

 

The story my mother tells of

when the first child, Edie, was still an infant,

Judy lived with my parents.

She had never used a washing machine,

And when she went to wash the cloth diapers,

She didn’t know to rinse them first.

“There was a s**t ring around the entire

barrel of the washer,” said my mother.

 

Aunt Judy had lived simply, it seems,

back in Germany.

She would have had to, with the

state of that country after the war.

All those children, an army of celebration.