My mother wore wire framed corsets,
that, I believe, squeezed the life out of her.
Once I saw her, getting ready to bathe,
and there were raw red weeping sores
as she peeled off the rubber form.
No wonder she had stiffened a little
as I crawled on to her hard lap.
She used pennies to keep her nylons up
where tabs had long disappeared
and I thought to have found gold
when I found one on the floor
and ran to return it to her; a treasure.
Our last Christmas Eve, I crawled
again to cradle her for one last time.
She was soft and her eyes had
that far-away look: dull copper.
She folded in to me, un-girdled,
and gave me the gift of her unformed goodbye.
Author notes
Prompt:
"Complacency wears a crimson corset"
Defined for this theme as:
"unawareness of danger, trouble, or approaching death"
about 20 lines{-/+}
three generations - about 1997
In a list
A contest entry
- COMPLACENCY WEARS A CRIMSON CORSET...phrase & image prompt...10/20 by Blue Rew.
792 points, ended December 21, 2007, 5 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
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Nice poem Carol.
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ty, my friend.
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This write is moving to me...
powerful weaving of small details that symbolize
larger things in life. You have taken this theme
in the direction I intended. Bravo
Blue
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ty blue. I sure could use my mother now.
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