The Cost of a Dime
Family heirlooms from a WWII internment camp
No jewelers there
she told us and laughed,
a hard, foreign sound
to granddaughters who'd never heard
of camp and internment
in state school elementaries.
*
Against her curled palm
the circle made from a dime
tarnished and thin,
her fingers too swollen now
to wear the broken band
my grandfather made decades ago
with a hammer,
a nail and a coin.
*
When they released families
from barbed wire fences, she said,
warehouses had been ransacked by thieves,
a history destroyed for scapegoats.
Squatters had taken
over houses and doors,
and our culture needed years
to rebuild homes and hearths
torn up by neighbors
pretending to follow laws.
*
When she died
my mother got the good pearls,
my sister her jade necklace--
they wore them
to the Buddhist temple
where we burned incense
and cried together.
*
But I inherited
my grandmother's palm,
the thinness of the band across it
like our family's war-tarnished name.
My fingers are too big for the ring
but I can hold history in my mouth
as my daughters listen
to the cadence of camp stories I tell them
passed down from my grandmother
about the value
and reason
for a dime.
About the Creator
Alison McBain
Alison McBain writes fiction & poetry, edits & reviews books, and pens a webcomic called “Toddler Times.” In her free time, she drinks gallons of coffee & pretends to be a pool shark at her local pub. More: http://www.alisonmcbain.com/
Comments (1)
Beautiful story