Letting Go Aunt Minnie

I remember you in all your faces from the photograph of a young girl surprised at being looked at, and later, Sun brown and strong over the garden hoe or throwing your head up to one side around the nanny's rump to milk her. I remember your white face in the doorway when you came, night-dressed and uncombed to tell us to settle down and go to sleep, The smiling face as you put the lemon pie to cool just inside the back screen door. My favorite! I said. You said you know! Best of all was the face that stayed indoors while we stripped the hollyhocks of reds and pinks for dancing ladies. In the quiet afternoon, our small voices written on the warm green breeze. Then came your grandmother and great- grandmother faces, made up of babies and children and of the old women Who used to be your daughters. Now one more pose one more shutter click. Move slightly to one side, just out of camera range. See the set? The scene plays on; the mouths are Still moving. You can look at it from this point of view: all glass and the sound of a bell. Take up the shimmer and enter the sound; everything is possible. You and I will be girls together, hold hands and Swing one another in wild circles. It's all right; you know all the others and the rest of us will be there soon.