The Letters of Her Name

My grandmother made her X on the line

Demeaned because she could not sign her name

Her prosperous son showed her where to sign

I understood the privacy of shame

A burden that makes others look away.

She pinches pennies by not eating meat

Living on what the government will pay

And Brooklynese she picks up from the street…

Ellis Island, her passage long ago

She never spoke of it. I do not know

If guardians brought her across the sea

Or if she endured the voyage alone

Cast on the water like a bit of bread

To die without ever seeing the stone

On the Hudson near lady liberty

Where her name is engraved in memory

With others on a ledge the city built

For those we are unwilling to forget.

After a little while flowers wilt

But I can see along the parapet

The letters of her name that had been set.