Aunt Pauline started painting in her sixties,
little watercolors of beach scenes and roses,
matted and framed on her kitchen walls.
Her football-coach husband seemed mystified
by her sudden secret life. Each Tuesday
she packed her paints and set off for class
with 80-something Mitch Mendelson,
the watercolor king of Englewood, New Jersey.
Put a little red, he’d say, in each painting,
and she’d comply. Each week a new picture
was framed and hung, soon covering
the dining room, the living room, even
the basement man cave–a little red in each.
At Mitch’s funeral, she put a red ribbon in his casket.

First appeared in Nine Muses Poetry