Snap-Shot 1917

Imaging my Mother,
From snippets rarely told,
Of when she was a girl:
There she is, in sepia,
A pretty thing with downcast eyes,
Her name a burden.

It’s not her fault,
She’s done no wrong.
But there’s suspicion
Among the girls at boarding school
That she doesn’t have the patriotic spirit
That is required to fight the Hun.

To fight the Hun,
If not in fact,
Then in theory:
Because she bears the guilt
Of that unbearable name –
Marguerite Von Zee.