Aunt Wilma

when aunt wilma was ten years old
she could walk under the kitchen table
there were whispers about some kind
of bone disease I don't think anyone knew
she was one of nine children
my grandmother delivered
on their farm in northern ohio
there were six boys and three girls
my mom was one of these girls
wilma never got very tall
but lived a long healthy life
alone until she moved into an old folks home
when she was living her middle years
she called home the second floor
of the old family house in a small ohio town
near the farm where she was born
mom use to take my sisters Nedra and Janny
and me to clean Wilmas rooms
there was no upstairs bathroom
mom carried the slop jar down the stairs
and emptied it in the outhouse
the slop jar was the size of a big paint bucket
and very heavy when full
mom gave each of use kids a piece
of something that looked like pink silly putty
we warmed it with our hands
she showed us how to slide it over the wallpaper
which was the way it was cleaned in those days
the pink color slowly turned gray then black
probably the result of the coal furnace
mom washed windows and took Wilmas laundry
to be done at our house
we were glad wilmas house was clean