Dorothy Day’s Hat

Dorothy Day’s Hat

Colin Jeffrey Morris

The thing to do is not to hold on to anything

Mary Ann reaches into her Stop
& Shop bag while I talk, sets
between us a tiny straw thing.
You’ll know what to do with this
-- that’s all she says. I scan the
blanched grass, the worn wear-
marks, soft dents -- of course,
it was Dorothy’s.

The note folded inside affirms
provenance – names and places
attest that it touched the live
skull of Don’t call me a saint (in a
book-jacket photo she wears one
just like it, sat flanked by armed
strike cops, resisting arrest).

At home, I suspend it above my
old desk-top, a sacrosanct relic
the looked-for effect. Torn lattice
refuses, black eyelets blink vacant,
all battered straw says is love won‘t
be caught here.

for Mary Ann Joyce-Walter

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Colin Jeffrey Morris
Poet

Colin's work has been published in Delmarva Review, descant, The Ekphrastic Review and Lily Poetry Review.  He lives in western Massachusetts.

Photography by Zane Lindsay