Nothing Borrowed Nothing Blue

A goodbye-promise bride,
my grandmother worked her wait in the Navy.
So early in WWII, she modeled the first
dress whites, tailored to her ship-trim shape.
Her 22 inch waist would be packed under 6 pregnancies.
Her desire to graduate as a pilot
bustled into Belgium silk, thin as high altitude light.

I was 12 the first time I tried to fit.
My rib cage barely breathed,
the tiny seams close-caught.
Shoulders cagey in their breadth,
nothing puffed sleeves could convince otherwise.
I already stood at her altar height.

My mother, a bird of the high Slavic species,
porcelain as bone china plates,
worked at the optometrist’s office.
The library was where she lived. Words,
paper-cutting fragile, tucked behind her delicate smile.
In an empire waist dress, she sealed her silence,
a kiss, a promise kept for 30 years.

That zipper never met my frame,
18 year old hips catching the silhouette,
near-white knuckled fists of teenage protest.
Taller flat-footed than her high-heeled moment,
my wrists reached beyond the cuffs.

My own wedding was cut to size,
satin roses bound to the bend of my back.
After 15 years, philosophy found me,
flapped my sky black with migratory movement.
Home and work, carrot and stick.
I worked it out that I could have both,
3 kids, 2 degrees, 1 divorce. In the end,
my stride longer than a cathedral train could contain.
My mother always said, I walked like a sailor.

 

In Kindergarten, Creation was Simple

 

Careless pressure                  fingers and thumbs,

kneaded men into attentive shapes.

 

I called them out of their           shapelessness

with a wild assortment of whispered names.

 

Pat-a-cake innocence                  chubby hands

mashed them back to thoughtless red and blue.

 

Satisfied, I choose yellow next . Without a moment

wasted on why.

In and Out of Style

 

Every other song on the radio sounds

like a guest appearance on The Young Ones.

The DJ announces each single NEW!

 

I tell my daughter that I had jelly shoes

in middle-school. And neon lace too.

She rolls her eyes, But these are cool.

It Doesn’t Take Long to Learn, the Joke is Always on Us

 

On the playground, a little girl

bedecked in fragile pink frosting is doted after.

A mother in pearls, immaculate in J. Crew

clucks disapproval at every smudge.

Picture perfect takes pains to develop.

 

In a mad rush, the little meringue

crams a fistful of mulch into her mouth.

Runs drooling with muddy laughter

the opposite direction of her mother’s indignation.

Out of reach, with both hands paws bitter pulp off her tongue.

Late Spring

Brown shoulder half asleep

half uncovered the white sheet slips

wet from roof tops. I tiptoe through

the morning mud grey and green spikes.

Sun melts a yellow coughdrop camphor.

Everything runs and me red-nosed

without a tissue in my pocket.

JR Forasteros and I talk about why demons are suddenly everywhere on this episode of Origami Elephants. Come join the conversation.