A Gift From Great-Aunt Prudence

Drawing by Joseph Yeomans

Poem by Lewis Gardner

In the early days of liberated consciousness —

1967, to be exact —

I was cashier in a shop of imported

goods.  One cargo included hand-carved

wooden sculptures from Taiwan

of a hand with upraised middle finger.

This wasn’t the plastic gewgaw

you later saw everywhere, but something

no doubt crafted by carvers with generations

of tradition behind them, who assumed

this strange object had religious

significance for Americans.

One night a little old lady —

since this was Boston, a very Bostonian

old lady — brought six of them

to my counter.  “Such lovely ringholders,”

she said, “just the thing

for my grandnephews this Christmas.”

So early in the days of liberated

consciousness — and in Boston besides —

I didn’t know how to tell an old lady

that these items were neither ringholders

nor suitable gifts for her grandnephews.

So I rang them up and bagged them.

Besides, I really enjoyed imagining

Christmas morning in Cambridge, Duxbury,

Manchester-by-the-Sea,

as one by one they would open

neatly wrapped packages sent

with love by Great-Aunt Prudence.