White Button
by Liza McAlister Williams
A button came up
in the garden
white as a snowdrop
washed by spring rain.
“Whose?” I thought,
naming possible
trespassers. But even
before I picked it up
I guessed what
proved to be true.
It was
an otherworldly button
of milky white glass
—tested against my teeth—
an anonymous artifact
rising from the past
like a ghost, a glimpse
of sailor suit or pinafore
in a Brooklyn garden
in another life.
Copyright © 2010 by Liza McAlister Williams.
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