February 7, 2012
You want to stand and take a bow
Hear a fair amount of clapping
From the sidelines
And a tinkling of cups and tittering
Of laughs and muffled flutterings of thunder
From so many sets of dainty hands in gloves
And all around, a sea
Of ladies in their feathered hats
And veils and shoulder pads
And they would smile up at the runway
As you strutted through the lights
Beside the models
Tossing flowers
At the tables.
Fame
Is fleeting when you're five
It disappears at lunchtime
When they offer you a sandwich
And all you want is liverwurst
And everything so elegant
And how the lipsticked lips
Did part and show their teeth
And laugh and laugh.
And you felt odd.
This was my mother's dream.
The dresses filled her mind.
How the Chinese did a seam
Or the way the French would make a hem.
Her gowns could stand alone
Constructed out of bone
And horses' hair and sometimes
Dressed in feathers, ermine tails
Or beads. If she had needs
The dresses ate them up.
One day, not long ago
She called me from New York
My Last Dress is finished
She breathlessly announced.
And then exclaimed, It's so pretty!
She could have been sixteen.
She told me of the lines
She described fabric, the color and
The sheen, and how it stands
Around the collar
And how the skirt moves when you walk.
No one was there to take the photograph.
The client's chauffeur came and called upstairs.
The seamstress swooshed it out the door.
And that was that. There were to be no more.
She doesn't talk about that now.
She looks to what next she might do.
This December she'll be ninety two.
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Kate O'hehir
hilarad
skypixie0
Rennis
Little Kate
Algis Kemezys
Salon.com
Comments
Glad to hear your mother is still cutting her own path of patterns.
R
We use to have roosters who
roosted in the oak tree limbs
Foxes would get in the coop
`
My neighbor has a wild rooster
He crows in the middle of night
He acts kooky. No fry a chicken
`
When he crows I recall folk here
I wonder if we live a good life here
When we croak we score in heaven
If we get passed Pearly gates? okay
`
I hope chicken have yellow teeth
Teeth are not naturally all white
I hope all deceased people smile
Maybe we meet the nice helpmeet
I sure don't know what will happen
Indians dressed like Nature's birds
.
Thanks Art, and Patrick - and Sky, she would say she would agree)
Thanks Lea and Chrissie - yes, I think she does.
♥