DAY 85 - COUSIN HELEN

85.
COUSIN HELEN

My first memory of Mama's unwed cousin
Helen was of trim ankles crossed
primly beneath a proper gray tweed skirt,
sturdy leather handbag beside her chair,
a tissue tucked up her sleeve.
Helen was a decade and a half older than Mother,
a rather large difference on some occasions.
Is it politically correct to refer to her as unwed?
I think it sounds better than spinster,
which sounds better than old maid.
Or does it? I probably don't need
to mention her marital status at all.
If I was writing about my unwed brother, Joe,
I'd call him a bachelor, which sounds dashing.
It pains me to call her a spinster,
with its regrettable connotations.
That's how it was back then, in the 1950s,
when I was a bachelor girl of nine,
and Helen was a bachelor girl of fifty-three.

*comments welcome