To Aunt Rose 
 Allen Ginsberg 

Aunt Rose—now—might I see you 
with your thin face and buck tooth smile and pain 
                     of rheumatism—and a long black heavy shoe 
                            for your bony left leg 
   limping down the long hall in Newark on the running carpet 
                     past the black grand piano 
                            in the day room 
                                    where the parties were 
             and I sang Spanish loyalist songs 
                     in a high squeaky voice 
                            (hysterical) the committee listening 
                     while you limped around the room 
                            collected the money— 
   Aunt Honey, Uncle Sam, a stranger with a cloth arm 
                     in his pocket 
                        and huge young bald head 
                           of Abraham Lincoln Brigade 

—your long sad face 
             your tears of sexual frustration 
                     (what smothered sobs and bony hips 
                           under the pillows of Osborne Terrace) 
   —the time I stood on the toilet seat naked 
             and you powdered my thighs with calamine 
                     against the poison ivy—my tender 
                           and shamed first black curled hairs 
   what were you thinking in secret heart then 
                     knowing me a man already— 
   and I an ignorant girl of family silence on the thin pedestal 
                     of my legs in the bathroom—Museum of Newark. 

                                  Aunt Rose 
   Hitler is dead, Hitler is in Eternity; Hitler is with 
                     Tamburlane and Emily Brontë 

Though I see you walking still, a ghost on Osborne Terrace 
                     down the long dark hall to the front door 
             limping a little with a pinched smile 
                     in what must have been a silken 
                                          flower dress 
    welcoming my father, the Poet, on his visit to Newark 
                     —see you arriving in the living room 
                           dancing on your crippled leg 
                      and clapping hands his book 
                           had been accepted by Liveright 

Hitler is dead and Liveright’s gone out of business 
The Attic of the Past and Everlasting Minute are out of print 
                     Uncle Harry sold his last silk stocking 
             Claire quit interpretive dancing school 
                     Buba sits a wrinkled monument in Old 
                           Ladies Home blinking at new babies 

last time I saw you was the hospital 
             pale skull protruding under ashen skin 
                     blue veined unconscious girl 
                           in an oxygen tent 
             the war in Spain has ended long ago 
                           Aunt Rose 

Paris, June 1958

From Collected Poems, 1947-1980. (HarperCollins, 1984)