Aunt Vera and Uncle…
Half a picture, half a story.
I didn’t know my uncle’s face
or even his name –
he was Vera’s Mistake,
Vera’s Good for Nothing,
the mysterious Him of family legend.
And though I often wanted
to snip my brother
out of family photos,
I was made to understand
that no wrong,
no amount of ornery meanness
would ever equal
what this uncle by marriage
had done to us all.
Alarie Tennille (Kansas City, Missouri) is the author of Running Counterclockwise (2014) and Waking on the Moon (2017). She’s spent half her life by the sea and the other half missing it. She hopes you’ll visit her at alariepoet.com.