{"id":90414,"date":"2015-09-30T17:01:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T21:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=90414"},"modified":"2015-09-30T17:01:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T21:01:14","slug":"aunt-alma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/","title":{"rendered":"Aunt Alma"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_90417\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90417\" class=\"wp-image-90417\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11.jpg 1267w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11-1024x762.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-90417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Judith Mason, <i>Self Portrait Age Ninety<\/i> (detail), 1985.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>\u201cAunt Alma,\u201d a poem by W. S. Merwin from our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/18\" target=\"_blank\">Spring 1958 issue<\/a>. Merwin is eighty-eight today.\u00a0<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This is the one that will outlive us all<br \/>With her head in the same duster and her small<br \/>Mouth maybe puckering in a bit more<br \/>Each decade, but it always did gather<br \/>Shut, that way, with a drawstring. Only her<br \/>Glasses, I think, may thicken some; that odor<br \/>Of naptha and laundry, that look and color<br \/>Of saved pumpkin shrunk in the dark, were there<br \/>Twenty-five years ago when she appeared<br \/>Over the railing of Ruth\u2019s cradle and<br \/>Made the baby scream. Nothing has escaped<br \/>That stub and orange hand since it was little<br \/>And could snatch rats out of the cellar wall<br \/>To soak in gas and light them with a match<br \/>As she let go, laughing for fear the fields catch,<br \/>Up the river, when they were children. It still<br \/>Possess three pennies of the first nickel<br \/>Husband Spence ever made, and cleans and keeps<br \/>Things covered but never uses, while the world<br \/>Knows who might be watching even the preachers<br \/>On their pedestals. Nor nothing ever got faded<br \/>By the daylight in a house of hers. Only<br \/>The eye of God ever got past the drawn<br \/>Blinds and belted drapes at her locked windows,<br \/>To where she sits now on a loose cover<br \/>While Spence nods in his hat, and her brother<br \/>The snuffling preacher and she writhe together<br \/>With the wrestlers on the jigging screen, smack<br \/>Fists in palms and cry for blood. Unto her<br \/>Dark at last all our things will be added,<br \/>We never doubted. One after the other<br \/>She will watch us go, and no one will see<br \/>Her sidle up to each of us where he lies,<br \/>See her bend down over us, blinking behind<br \/>Her mullioned lenses, nor catch the rat-quick hand<br \/>Reach to snatch the pennies from our eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAunt Alma,\u201d a poem by W. S. Merwin from our Spring 1958 issue. Merwin is eighty-eight today.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[8769,19608,8226,13170,19610,7221,165,2047,19607,16413,349],"class_list":["post-90414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-aging","tag-aunts","tag-family","tag-from-the-archives","tag-issue-18","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poets","tag-relatives","tag-the-elderly","tag-w-s-merwin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cAunt Alma,\u201d a Poem by W. S. Merwin from Spring 1958<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 30, 2015 \u2013 \u201cAunt Alma,\u201d a poem by W. S. Merwin from our Spring 1958 issue. Merwin is eighty-eight today.\u00a0This is the one that will outlive us allWith her head in the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aunt Alma by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 30, 2015 \u2013 \u201cAunt Alma,\u201d a poem by W. S. Merwin from our Spring 1958 issue. Merwin is eighty-eight today.\u00a0This is the one that will outlive us allWith her head in the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-30T21:01:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1267\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"943\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\"},\"headline\":\"Aunt Alma\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-30T21:01:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/\"},\"wordCount\":302,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/aunt-alma\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/judith_mason11.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"aging\",\"aunts\",\"family\",\"From the Archives\",\"Issue 18\",\"poems\",\"poetry\",\"poets\",\"relatives\",\"the elderly\",\"W. 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