These Things Pass

[Achebe]

Hi dale - a slightly more detailed crit. hope it helps.

These Things Pass
 
My aunt Lottie lived to be one hundred and two,
she drank her coffee as watery
as the eyes of some of her friends,
or the amount of oil to salt water
we were getting when we finally
closed downed the oil leases,             ....suggest something on the lines of "or our leases, less oil than salt water / when we finally closed them down"
precipitating me to leave town ....did you really 'leave town' because your offshore oil leases had run out? or were they onshore leases? where was the salt water coming from, if the latter? just curious. Not a crit. If it's made up, then it is a serious crit. Because in that case, I'd doubt whether you'd have left town for said reason. It's not as if you were sucking out the oil from the wells manually.
and move far away.  ....don't think this merits its own line
The next time I saw her,
was some years later. ....again, a rather bland statement to merit an entire line
She met me at the door unafraid,
(Thank god they'd taken her guns away) ....unnecessary. the next 2 lines show that she's batty enough
telling me she knew what I wanted,
and that she was dialing 9-1-1.
She had been my favorite aunt,
my only aunt really.  ....rambling
She used to come and take me ...Too many words. 'She'd take me to the corner drug store' might be less rambling
to the "Corner Drug Store" ....quotation marks?
and buy me tuna fish sandwiches
on toasted bread and a coke
mixed the old fashioned way, ....nice 
but just like the Easter Bunny,
These Things Pass. ....unsure about the capitalisation and how exactly the Easter Bunny passes. Do you mean faith in the Easter Bunny? I don't think everything needs to be spelled out exactly, but as a reader - and not as a Serious critter looking deliberately for issues - it did bother me the first time. Why not Santa Claus? I was wondering then.
 
erthona
 
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