Stary Zgred, Barbie, 2017
Digital photograph
Courtesy of Flickr
As bombshell, as blonde as they come, half-clad in a green satin slip.
My mother as photographed, lips & toes in Candy Apple, a body
glossy & gleaming as the pressure cooker, the percolator, the Electrolux
at her feet like a fat dachshund. My mother as subject, object
whose lesson I must learn again & again. The girlhood spent
in sailor suits, fetching little hats. Beauty as cage, as cult, as calling.
Her butter & bread. Looks aren’t everything, she liked to say, as if
she meant it. She was at her happiest with a book & a bottle.
I found her ball gowns in the back of a closet, swaddled
myself in spotless organdy, paraded around the house
trailing miles of black chiffon. My mother
after the breakdown, striking poses in my baby sister’s jeans.
My mother. If she were here, I’d show her—
I still wear the cheekbones she gave me, these diamond clavicles.