I am always the beautiful one. When I was
seventeen, I learned how to walk, fix my face,
and wear my hair the ways they liked: coiffures
in bouffant or beehive, filigree clips and gem
stone slides. I modeled new clothes for O’Neil’s
and Polsky’s, rival department stores that rose
like cities with whole blocks of suits and dresses,
plus their own grand restaurants. Almost gave up
working for Ohio Bell, where one street of ladies
manned the telephones, but when you’re alone
too much you can get weird-acting. In between
modeling you’re a body chatting like old friends
to empty bodices about being cut on a bias,
swapping opinions on plaids in plum, wine,
and garnet. Believe me; I’ve dreamed of life
after death and it’s all come true. If you don’t
want to get screwed, you do just what they say.
Show off the legs, hang around with the dress-
maker’s dummy discussing velvet cuts and brocades.
Take sips of slim cigarettes to stay calm and elegant.
Nonna Concetta got worried and gave me a rosary
more mesmerizing than any necklace I’d seen.
It was blessed by the pope, I don’t know which,
but I since love to pray. I’d sit there in my car, lost
along some byway, and trembling with nerves
let the ruby beads run like blood
through my fingers—reassured
by the sight of so much useful red.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 5.
Lake Angela is poet laureate of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is currently composing her Autobiography of My Grandmothers, and her books include Scivias Choreomaniae (Spuyten Duyvil), Words for the Dead (FutureCycle), and Organblooms (FutureCycle). Her poems also appear in The Common, Bayou, Seneca Review, Passages North, ANMLY, and others, and her poetry-dance translations present the value of schizophrenia spectrum creativity: www.lakeangeladance.com.
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