HOW WE PICKED YOUR NAME
for Lin­coln Schechter (born Novem­ber 5, 2003)

They told him Grant was filthy drunk.
“Then find out what he’s drinkin’,
and make the other gen­er­als
drink some, too,” said Lin­coln.

He wrote the Get­tys­burg Address,
trans­formed the lowly ink in
his pen to soar­ing flights of prose!
And so we named you Lin­coln.

A moral man, pro­found and brave,
com­pas­sion­ate and thinkin’,
he nul­li­fied the title ‘slave’.
What bet­ter name than Lin­coln?

You may not under­stand just yet,
but some­day it will sink in:
of all the names a boy can get,
there’s none sur­passes Lin­coln.



(orig­i­nally pub­lished in Light Quar­terly)