Two Poems

Andrea Hollander Budy

Photograph of Her Grandmother as a Young Woman

for Miriam Mörsel Nathan

If only it had been passed down
the way it should have been passed down
grandmother to mother to daughter

If she could have known the color of the dress
she had to guess might have been yellow
but pale like the buttercups in her garden
and not the sewn-on stars

If it had been passed down
in its frame where it must have stood with a family
of photographs on a credenza
in the house they left
when they were told to leave
to leave everything as it was
and go

If only
they had not been told to go

and it had been passed down
hand to hand and not by a stranger
who had searched
to find her

And with it
a story passed down
grandmother to mother to daughter
a typical boring story like anyone's

a story passed down
blameless and sweet

***

Taffeta

In her last bed, the kind you can raise
by pressing a button, but the button

by this time too difficult for her, she talks
about next month's holiday, her favorite, she says,

ringing in the season. She wants taffeta,
red taffeta—she loves the feel of it. She loves

whirring it through her Singer. And as she speaks
I can picture my mother at her sewing table

or on the couch hemming
while Lawrence Welk introduces another polka.

A gown, she says, with ruffles.
And I promise to shop for patterns, bring back

samples of all the possibilities. As I say this
I wonder if she knows

she'll never leave this bed. She's only
fifty-one. She loves figs in summer,

and at this time of the year pomegranates.
She taught us how to eat them:

hidden in each white pocket a throng of crimson seeds
pungent on the tongue. Now

her eyes droop a little, and she asks
for water. I start to hand her the plastic cup

but have to hold it while she sips.
My father clears his throat. He's been rubbing her feet

since we got here. This will be her last day
but no one knows it. I'm thinking of the sheen

of taffeta, the way the bolt will roll out
like the Red Sea

onto the cutting table.

Andrea Hollander Budy has published three full-length poetry collections, most recently, Woman in the Painting. Recipient of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, the D. H. Lawrence Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the RUNES Award, and two NEA fellowships, her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, textbooks, and literary journals. Budy splits her time between Portland, Oregon, and the Arkansas Ozarks, where she has been the Writer-in-Residence at Lyon College since 1991. Her website is www.andreahollanderbudy.com.

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