fifty years later



you girls wear their old dresses
over sky
blue leggings
lace
and fabric that smells
of lost time

you found them
in stores
with high ceilings
and a sloppily simulated
rustic vibe

you love your
waists tastefully
cinched
and collar bones
concealed

you twirl before
the full length
mirrors and
wish oh how
you wish
you could
have been born
then instead of now

everything
was so much classier!
the women
were a different
kind of beautiful

women
who smoked
in their bathtubs
cardboard hairdos
unraveling

women
elbow deep in
baking
soda and dishsoap

soft secretive
smiles overtaking
their
faces
as they rattled
through the
medicine
cabinet
for a snack
(twice a day)

pregnant again
for
the fourth
time
yet
thin as a rail
somehow

ghosts
in their own
skin

silent but
deadly

crying manically
because of
the smoke
in their eyes

choking gently
on the powder
all over their tight
lovely complexions

dinner ready
at six
sharp as a rusty nail

fantasizing
about what it would be like
to fall in love
with another woman

scuffing their knees
and showing the raw
skin off to all
the young men
with sunlight left over
from childhood still
swimming in their
eyes

or walking home
in the rain
without an umbrella
and having that be ok

slapping their
own faces
at such trecherous
thoughts

obsessing
over how
their mothers did
it with
so much **** grace...

but yes
girls
their clothes
were simply
divine