how pretty I looked in that
pink taffeta dress with
with a rhinestone fleur-de-lis
hair plaited in long, loose braids
sidewinder glance mad smile
I was smiling but I seethed
I was not happy that day
I am still not happy about that day
when they shucked my dirty boots
and tried to pry me into a pair of
black patent Mary Janes so torturous
my uncle threw them in the fire
I felt Joan of Arc at my side, and her triumph
I am not happy about what
happened subsequently, it always
took too many angry people to
get me dolled up, my mother
pointing to the burning shoes
I don’t want to talk about
what happened next
©2009 Viola Weinberg
Now that you've said that, of course I am dying to know what happened next, particularly since I have some of own sidewinder glance smiles in family scrapbooks. And maybe some idea of what happened next. You dipped your pigtail ends -- either cut off in a frenzy or intact -- in black ink and decorated the pink taffeta? You ran outdoors and tried to walk the tightrope of the nearest chainmail fence and fell into the muddiest puddle you could spot, all with plausible deniability? Or you did what you were to do and acted as you were supposed to act until a crucial moment when you innocently bllew it all up? Or you did what you had to do, spoke or ate or performed as expected, then later and privately threw up and cried all night?
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