It must have been a high-end sanitarium.
The plates she painted there were Limoges.
I thought for years she was an artist.
I did wonder why we had those, when all
Dad’s banker father left him was a gold dollar.
The rest went to the second wife.
My family said I didn’t look like anyone. They said
Grandmother was in and out of institutions before
dying young. They would have mentioned TB.
But my eyes gaze back at me from her 1910 portrait.
Why did no one mention this resemblance?
Did they fear insanity was catching like flu?
It must have been a high-end sanitarium
where she painted all I knew of her
perfect roses, lilacs, forget-me-nots.
A WELL TRAVELED HEART 
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