My aunt, who in her mild imagination
was Ginger Rogers lacking an Astaire,
lived to the last a notch above her station,
an exiled queen propped up by Medicare.
A mirrored sideboard’s porcelain swans and swains
(no Meissen, some Limoges, all very late)
amount now to the bulk of her remains:
even en masse, the daintiest estate.
Bring bubble wrap and drive them to the thrift store.
It’s not our place to ponder the true worth
of fragile imitations, fortune’s gifts for
ladies of noble taste and common birth.
This poem appears in the October 2026 print edition.
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