I can remember
near Memorial Day
of 1955.
My great-grandfather Cox,
(just Grampa to me)
has me seated in the car
up front with him.
I am sitting as tall as I can
in order to see out the windows.
Grampa is driving through the center of town,
three traffic lights then as now.
The first light clicks to red
in front of the courthouse.
Grandpa rolls to a stop next to
a skinny man
wearing an army barracks cap
in the cross walk.
The man, much younger than Grandpa,
nonetheless familiar, says,
“Frank, where’s your Poppy?”
Grandpa always looks pissed off,
Like he’s chewing something tough.
But he pulls two dollars
from his shirt pocket,
hands them to the man in the cap.
“I want two, Melvin.”
He gives me a glance.
He doesn’t smile,
He looks like he got stuck
with some duty
beneath his station.
He lays both paper flowers
on the dash.
He drives one block and turns right,
drives past the Post Office,
makes another right
into the parking lot behind Beech Market.
He stops the old Dodge,
takes a paper poppy
And twists the wire stem
around the middle button on my shirt
He does the same to his own.

I remember he placed his higher,
where he couldn’t really see it
but others could.
The VFW had completely
occupied our downtown.
I didn’t know then
that
the poppy was a protection racket.
It was a cool poppy.

Grampa always smelled of tobacco.
The poppy didn’t smell like anything.