Aunt Haint
By Ed Roberson
She would post herself in the way
in lines headed to transfer stops, to change,
or haunt intersections with four way full
scarecrow indecision, stop
on the corners of streets, and in the aisles
of buses, preaching only that
which has never left these crossings for road,
for choice — the angry fear. She seats
at the feasts — Thanksgiving, any
holiday, any family place
setting — the hunger of others’
satisfaction for herself, she seeks it
said this is what she deserves, if only
of herself. What she thinks she thinks
needs to be said whatever anyone
else thinks to be honest. So there
she sings from that part of the door
she’s never got through, the eye
which requires it all taken off down
all blown away to get through to
that still naked-ness of clear again
even if she’s not still, the voice comes through
that if we could listen as she is equally
raw hear with meat and gut below the skin,
beyond the last violence,
to the silence just before
the bone if we could still hear there
we’d hear
2
What hand can you offer one wanting
just to get even for what it doesn’t know what,
just to take out what it feels on someone else
to hurt because it can’t get at where it hurts itself
to have to see to clear like a movie fakes
done seeing sharper than thought can cut to it;
what hand can you offer one that doesn’t know even
as a balance any other than more as my half and
who counts itself that much more
and that more proofless multiple unanswerably human hurts
because it can’t figure out a figure to answer how it wants
so count doesn’t count higher than want
and want also falls short enough to take someone down
for it
but there is no size for another to be cut down to but none
but death this is so frustrating
3
You see me get the hell away from her
don’t you quick as I can and I bein nice
she act all girlfriend but that bitch dangerous
she pull so much rotten shit on peoples
she due to get her ass killed anytime
and I don’t tend to be nowhere near round
I ain’t getting cut down just for standin
next to her I ain’t all that innocent
but I don’t be lookin for nothing I don’t deserve
