Nannie Owen

“Maiden aunt” and not even in their family
but often of its sorrows, simple joys
and boundless (bounded?) expectations, I’d visit
them summers when the mountains’ haziness called me
with promises of coolness and seeing Lemuel.
I’d  known him forever and never.  He’d ignored me
with that unfailing civility too smooth to stifle hope
and too correct to offer any.  Religious to a fault
and seeking with fierceness the salvation that he preached
he never looked my way, that way.  You know,
none of his wives knew how well that man could dance.