When my mother
was born her mother
refused to name her
after my no-good
grandfather's
favorite prostitute
the way he did his
first daughter
Essie and later
would Lil.
My grandmother
insisted my mother
be named Margaret
for purity, a Greek
derivation of pearl.

My Aunt Essie
never became a
prostitute like
her namesake.
She married
young at 13
and died young
at 39 of Lou
Gehrig's disease
but my Aunt Lil
I heard
sometimes drank
too many dry
martinis at
cocktail parties
and would dance
the cha-cha-cha
like a senorita
and unbutton
to halfway
her blouse.




This poem is one of the bus-stop poems specially commissioned by centrifugalforces to be read on Wap enabled devices. Visit our Wap site at www.centrifugalforces.co.uk