Eva I

the last Sunday
i remember you
in hat
pastels
soft gray hair posing beneath
your HATNESS
(only black women achieve the HAT-NESS)
that I envy you for.
You

                  Grandmother
                  African Methodist Episcopal
                  Missionary
                  Widowed minister’s wife
                  Mother of four
                  grandmother of five
                  great grandmother of fourteen
                  HAT-NESS is inherited
                  it’s in the blood
                  because I got the Hatness
                  too—

                                    i can put on your
                                    old silk and taffeta and
                                    linen dresses, petticoats and
                                    suits— and top this little
                                    head w/a panama
                                    and hatness becomes herstorical
                                    enriched w/Her/Your/Our style.