My grandmother
asked. I was six years old
and thought she had met
Abraham Lincoln.
An old beach photo caught
her in sandy ankle boots
and cinched waist, her long
hair blowing free of its pins.
She had lost her husband
in France to shell shock
and later to God; her daughter
to a drunk on Halloween night.
She traded her corset
for a shirtwaist dress and sensible
shoes and by 70 she was all dried
rose petals and amethyst.
When she told me
a hatpin could be a lady’s
friend I was not old
enough to understand.
