By John Ziegler
She called it the fox robe
which it wasn’t.
I found it in the steamer trunk
in her attic
wrapped in brown butcher paper.
It was more of a blanket.
Eight fox pelts with glass eyes, a hint of fine yellow teeth.
Unrolled, it released the aroma of moth balls
intended to prevent moths from eating the foxes.
The trunk brought my grandfather’s belongings
from Germany in 1878.
The robe covered grandmother’s lap
as he courted her in his black buggy.
How fine they looked, her in her round fur hat,
him in his tall tan stetson and clenched cigar.
At age 19, she agreed to marry the man.
He was 34.
He died before I was born,
leaving her the house where I grew up.
When it was time,
I inherited the trunk.
By then the moths had won out.
John Ziegler, formerly an art teacher, landscaper and gardener, he is a poet and painter now living in a mountain town in northern Arizona.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 