Ugliest woman
I ever saw: stout
with mottled skin,
plain-faced even when young
in those severe photographs.
Sometimes I looked away
not to puke.
She was still the favourite
we all begged to visit;
Grandma’s spinster sister.
Grandma had seven kids,
21 grandchildren. Aunty Amy
belonged to us all.
Now my sensible shoes like hers
make me smile. Past eighty
she read everything,
loved gardening
and us all.
[Poem #43]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
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