For Auntie Em

Auntie Em, she wished to be called,
echoing Oz
and a long ago farm boy from Kansas:
her dead lost love.

Now engaged in a battle with cancer,
what she feels, she hides,
knowing well
what the dither would be.

I tell her: Fight.
I'm not sure that's the right thing to say.
It's my own dismay.
Her mother's anger could help her.

She is caught in a bitter struggle.
It's a heavy task
and I have no idea how to help her.
I give her my memory of things:

the trees she climbed;
how I saved her from a circle of pigs,
how young and proud,
I passed out
when it came to needles.

She had little regard for herself,
just worked through troubles.
The cost
of her struggles was high.

She recreated herself “Granny Pockets”,
wore a pink mop cap
and a large striped apron with pockets
and, thus, disguised,
read library books to children.

Like a bough of the Osage orange
she was tough as steel
and springy,
bouncing back, maintaining tension.
She could laugh and cry both at once.

While she lost a lot of battles,
she won enough to be her own kind of Osage warrior.
She was that tough.