Poetry

Like a Lady

The chestnut wardrobe in the attic was carved from magic,

clean and forbidden -a jewelery box of sorts-

opening with the hesitant surprise of music.

And I became a spinning ballerina, adorned in Mary’s pink gingham,

a dress that hung in silence, stiff like a corpse, tucked away from messy things,

as if life could be live on a hanger.

The fabric was brushed silk and seemed to hold me upright,

a cast that held lanky legs and knobby knees,

trippping along in saddle shoes.

Mary never wore that dress, not even to church, not even for Easter,

her day clothes were a uniform of faded cotton and thin silver hair

crowned tight in a bun.

Her tan skin glistened elemental; her face slick

with olive oil, a homespun salve for skin cracked,

weathered by life and lye and loom.

It is this version of her,Mary, bent crooked,

and in the garden that is fleshy, ripe and alive.

Whispers of her with the rosary scatter dust

from cobwebs, and I remember,

sleep is sounder in soft cotton

Pink gingham remains a story of my own doing,

a story of an unworn woman, a woman

that for a time, I thought it wise to become.

A city park dandelion laughs

with as much swagger,

and has as much to say,

in her ordinary disarray-

as a silky peach rose

high upon the cultivated vine-

speaking in well kept refine.

How soft the thought,

how holy the faith, to die-

so that white plumes,

seeds of self may fly.