Aunt Teensie Poem by jackilton peachum

AUNT TEENSIE
(Mecklenburg Co., Va.,1948)

Brown skin color-wrinkle of new cure tobacco-leaf,
carrying herself along on a tall walking-stick
-- pace the step and stride of ancient lost caravans--
at her beck, darksome news out of old Niger,
in her voice night and the desert winds crossing Punt.

Two hands on my head holding me,
dark eyes behind steel-rim spectacles peering down,
'Dis boy got worms! I kin fix dat! '

She was already older than the pyramids when I knew her,
odder than Sphinx and fresher than the Nile flow
- I fled- and she delighted in my small-boy fear!

They shared sweet tea from a Mason-jar
on a sunny summer porch in August--
she spoke to my grandmother in riddles:
and my grandmother answered.

For A.T.