On Discovering My Grandmother's House is a Parking Lot -
London, Ontario, April 2000

Mornings I'd watch her dress,
first a long flannel undershirt, then heavy corset,
how she'd hide them under navy crepe, rhinestone
brooches, a string of pearls. On Fridays she'd cook
Shabbos chickens that were all legs, while we dressed
in her finest felt hats, her cheapest jewelry.

I have come to take a photo of 485 Talbot
if I can find it, it it still stands,
but thirty years have passed in the place
it should have stood, now a downtown parking lot.
Across the street a skinny, three story house,
mirrors what's gone' one frail dowager,
hunched in an arctic April wind.

by Marilyn Meyer