are best written out by hand, in fine
black ink with an old-fashioned
fountain pen with a modest, polished
carriage and a solid but flexible nib—
for instance, this story about how
my mother was a farmer’s daughter
who married a lawyer twenty years
her senior. They met the summer she
tended the cash register at The Midway
Restaurant and Bar in a sleepy northern
town on the coast, trying to put herself
through college. When I was a girl,
she recounted how he used to come in
with the same group of his friends in law
school, not so young men newly hopeful
in a world after war, all wearing suits
despite the infernal heat: cravats, hats, one
good pen with its small gold arrow clipped
like a talisman in the breast pocket. Oh
but after food and a few rounds of drink,
those ties were loosened, and even the shyest
could make bold to stagger over to the counter
to invite the girl with the perfectly shaped brows
to sit at their table. In another version of this
story, my mother says he threatened to break
every single wineglass on the counter to get
her attention if need be, if she refused.
The rest, as they say, is history. A few
months later, in the cathedral, as family
and friends looked on (my mother’s poorer
relations on one side of the church),
they signed their vows: his signature
looped and sprawling, hers neat and upright,
every letter in its place, elegant as a pin.
Lovely storytelling Luisa.