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The following poem is included in a manscript that was, until now, unseen by the public in part or otherwise. Tell me what you think.




Aunt Diane

When I was a boy
everyone said Diane
was crazy, a lunatic

I remember her sister
relaying how appalled
she was that Diane had claimed to be God
(and later that she married her elderly father-in-law

Frank)

Tales and images burned
a young boy’s mind, instilling fear

for a woman whose face
looked evil– even when she smiled at me

Georgia 1984: Frank died
And Diane came to live, in nearby Lawrenceville
and take care of an old woman. I visited the "rich"
woman she was nursing, saw MTV for the first time
Video killed the Radio Star, Money for Nothin’, and Beat It!

She had a Mustang II
listened to Dire Straits
played guitar, was schizophrenic

All I knew was she wasn’t
the person I’d heard about
She was kind, and seemed to
love me, everyone. I know now
that I loved her too

On the day she died

my mother and I
my brother, and sisters
sat on a blanket in the living-
room. Diane played her guitar
I recall we were all laughing
making animal noises. She began
to make the strangest noise I’d ever heard

We continued to laugh
pointing at her, until her face was
a swelled blue, and her guitar fell to the floor

I remember confusion
my mother’s face blurry

Paramedics ripping a
plaid, snap-buttoned shirt
her pasty white breasts exposed, her

body jolting, convulsing
as the electricity traveled
through her lifeless mass

and watching them stop
pull the white sheet over her
face and looking at their watches

For many years
Diane would appear
in my dreams, asking
me why I had laughed at her

But I could never answer
just lie paralyzed by fear, and wait to wake.