As soon as Aunt Roo sees me,
She takes her shoes off
And asks me to scratch her feet.
“My feet think steak knives feel the best,” she sighs.
Some tag her as strange, or vague.
“But strange ways make wry wit,” she quips.
We hide from the rest of the world
When we are in her huge house far from town.

On the side of her house thick vines
Curl and
Twist and
Weave in and out.
They look like green veins that press leaves near the bricks.
Oak trees and Pines
Stand in a straight row close to the street.
I love to play hide and seek in them
Or in one of Aunt Roo’s rooms.
The bones in her feet click when she skips in and out of the trees.
When she laughs and tries to hide.

Her left blue eye has a slight twitch
But the green one is fine.
Some think one eye is glass,
But they are both real she tells me.

Oh-- and Roo has twelve rooms that all look the same--
Red with white dots.
Pink and grey plush quilts hang that wisp in the wind,
Stuck by thick tacks or nails.
The same quilt hangs in each room,
The same shelves strewn with Great Dane books,
Same vase, same frame, same face in the frame.
Roo says she’s a great dame.
She likes to look at her own face,
Like the time when she was bald.
She says it makes her laugh.
“Why should each room change if I like one right way for each?”
She winks as she clicks.
We laugh and think back when Aunt Roo put ‘Hair B Gone’ on her head.
(It was stuff for her leg hairs)
She was bald for three months ‘till hair sprouts grew in.
Her hairs looked like just mowed clown nose red grass.

Aunt Roo used to have a male friend
Who lived with her for two months named Ray.
I heard Roo tell my mom that he would want her to crack an egg
On his head on days that would rain,
Then would want to make love in squished mud, like pigs.
She liked him,
But he was too strange for her.
We now call him Ex Ray.

Once Aunt Roo and I took a class at the Y.M.C.A.
It was called, “If Fat-- Be Fit.”
We had to climb steep walls
And run twelve laps a day, and say,
“If I don’t lose weight, I’ll lose in life.”

Aunt Roo and I found we like who we are,
Round or not.
We each lost ten pounds or so,
Then ate a truck load of fat and starch.
We were chunks once more,
But could climb a rope or wall in no time.

Once I thought I’d test my strength on Roo’s vines.
I swung on their thick trunks with one arm to my side
While I kicked and swayed back and forth.
I swung so hard my grip slipped
My fall crushed my hip,
And now I walk with a limp,
While Roo struts with a click.

My fall was not as bad as a boy down the street
Who jumped from a bale of hay,
And flew right on a pitch fork.
His dad found him dead the next day face down,
The fork’s spikes gouged through his red, wet back.




Aunt Roo used to like to snow ski down steep hills,
But once tried to snap her loose boot
And hit a tree head on.
She broke two ribs, one knee cap, and lost two front teeth.
She lisped and said she will thki thoon
‘Cause she likes fast slopes and fast men.

Did you know I’m on my way to see Aunt Roo now?
She rides bikes inside her house,
And she’s made a new bike--
Pink and grey I think.
She makes me feel brave.
Stop by and see her some time,
She’d love to meet you.