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the short, plump older lady,
my great grandmother, Grandma Potts;
how I heard that Grandad
lampooned an elderly neighbor
as the "May Queen" -- perhaps a sly
dig at Grannie Potts?
In the front, in a frilly white dress,
my mother, aged eight. Uncle Jack,
my grandparents' brother-in-law, hands
on her shoulders; I recall the shame,
the heat on the back of my neck,
when as a young teen I was told to kiss
Uncle Jack -- how before she died
Mum told me Jack was a "dirty old man";
and, next to Mum, the fair lad in short pants,
glancing down, shy of the camera,
her cousin Frank; I remember the photo
of Frank in leather fleece-lined
jacket in front of the Lancaster bomber
before he was shot down over Germany in '43.
Christopher T. George
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