The Button Tin

My mother had a tin container

that had once held a fruitcake,

and now it held buttons.

Buttons were prized in those times.

Before an old shirt became rags,

the buttons were salvaged and placed

in the tin.  Buttons from dresses,

pants, coats, shirts, blouses,

even the eyes of a rag doll were

removed, a sort of organ donation

before the toy was laid to rest.

In the early days each button had a story.

My mother remembered the dress or

shirt a particular button came from, and

she remembered some incident that

happened while that garment was worn.

The buttons were saved out of Great

Depression fear that someday you would

need a button the size of a lady bug, and

when that day came you wouldn’t be able

to afford to buy one.  This huge tin of buttons,

many older than me, were still in her sewing

room after she died.  No one felt the need

to inherit all those buttons.  They were about

as popular as a fruitcake in late June.