Poem: Seamstress by Emily Wallis Hughes

Antonie my grandmother was a seamstress in Germany
She came to America on a large ship
She lived in a boarding house in a tiny room
She sold her zither to a man who could not play it
Took care of children who were not her children
Bought a Brooklyn deli ran the deli with two other women
Met a man who was once a chimney sweep in Nuremberg
They married, they had children
Five children
Late at night she made clothes for them
A strawberry dress for my mother
A generous hem
Always generous hems always!
At school my mother couldn’t see the chalkboard
In the one room schoolhouse
She needed glasses
Antonie said no you need to be like the other children
My mother pretended to see what she wanted to learn
Yes that’s what she would tell me when we were inside
Of our house in the Sonoma Valley yes like how
She pretended to like the taste of powdered
Milk in the Pennsylvania winters