Grandmother in Jeans

Spins by the mirror, trimmed in
copper rivets and flashing indigo.
Meantime Mom fidgets
like she is ready to make a call,
while we teenagers look on,
remembering crystal goblets,
pointed shoes, tomato salads,
not this sashay
under ultraviolet lights
in the Army Navy
when just days before
she was in Clarksburg
wearing tan bend-overs
at her kitchen table
with the burner left on,
singed curtains
flying out the open window
and grandaddy refusing
to leave the golf course.

So she called Mom,
begging her to come to Clarksburg
in the one-dollar Fiat,
(putting it plainly, to skip town)
and one day later she
walked through the beaded curtain
and into our best bedroom,
then met with
every specialist in town,
reminding them
of her sound mind,
swearing them off
along with china and polyester,
wanting jeans.

So today she retells
that story again,
the one about
her Scarlett O'Hara mother
playing a piano
while Richmond burned
then loads up the ex-daughter-in-law
and her five children
in the one-dollar Fiat,
and heads to the Army Navy Store,
where (as history will tell)
she begins taking names,
shaking bootie with
Elton John and the sunshine family
in Wheeling, West Virginia,
mirrors and windows all around,
showing off legs
like they go on forever.

Mom leans against a stack
of boot-cut, adjusts her wig,
sighs out loud
while grandmother and the children
try out the denim, do the bump.
I think she is all right, Mom says,
practicing her phone voice.
I think she is going to be just fine.