Dead Soldier - edit

[dukealien]

Dead Soldier


At breakfast her last sweetness ran out, thin
and golden over waffles.  What am I
to do now with her empty husk, her name
emblazoned for this last time on its front–
my Aunt Jemima?  Kindly face long gone,
her smiling, chubby eagerness to please–
updated, oddly younger as she aged–
could not be tolerated, lacking rage,
resentment, or that high-chinned fortitude
unearned, displayed by those whose ancestors
were victimized to coin old suffering.

A substitute stands waiting on my shelf,
identical in form and content, full
but lacking both her image and her name:
Pearl Milling Company, it reads,
as sweet no doubt but charmless and remote.
So shall I transfer syrup from that new
to olden bottle or retain them both,
one for my waffles and the other as
a keepsake-relict of her loving soul,
dead soldier in uncivil culture wars
whose time of mythic friendliness has passed?

original version;


This morning her last sweetness ran out, thin
and golden over waffles.  What am I
to do now with her empty husk, her name
emblazoned for this last time on its front–
my Aunt Jemima?  Kindly face long gone,
her smiling, chubby eagerness to please
updated, oddly younger as she aged
could not be tolerated, lacking rage,
resentment, or that high-chinned fortitude
assumed unearned by those whose ancestors
were victimized to coin their suffering.

A substitute stands waiting on my shelf,
identical in form and content, full
but lacking both her visage and her name:
“Pearl Milling Company,” it reads,
as sweet no doubt but charmless and remote.
So shall I transfer syrup from that new
to olden bottle or retain them both,
one for my waffles and the other as
a keepsake-relict of her loving soul,
dead soldier in obsessive culture wars
whose time of mythic friendliness has passed?

First question, should "Pearl Milling Company" be italicized rather than quote-marked?  Consistency hobgoblin says "yes," but I hesitate to put it on the same typographic level as my late aunt.