Shank

for Cora

Though she lives in a world of Velcro, snaps

and zippers, I'm showing my granddaughter how

to sew on a button. She's nine, same age I was

watching my mother pick my favorite one, shaped

like a flower a child might draw, color of sunshine.

Her homemaker hands held everything together,

needle and red thread lickety-splitting up, over,

down, up again attaching the blossom to grass-

green cloth: Colors no bee could pass by. Now, before

the last tug of thread through the button

my granddaughter brought me, I point out the pinch

of space—width of a scissor-blade—between it

and the fabric, a shaft of stitches with a half-dozen

twists of thread around it before tying off. Shank,

I tell her, same as Mother named it. It strengthens

the bond between button and garment, less

friction than ready-mades, fasteners that loosen

too soon. Like love, my mother said. Close, but not too

close. A snip of thread and my granddaughter's ready

to go, fluorescent-pink button back on the nose

of her dog-faced school bag, the shank fixing us

together in this world my mother could trust

only so long as everything was done right, only

when she didn't forget to check I was buttoned up

proper, buttoned up tight.