Tiara

I recall my cape of hip-length tresses

Wavy locks swirling to guitar and drum

Brazen curls snaking around my jaw

Skirting across a lawn of auburn leaves

Igniting the tinder of other girls’ envy

Catching the sideways desire of boys

 

Bound with braids of stolen daisies

Wriggling out of tortoise shell clips

Thick locks fatiguing rubber bands

Youthful rebellion straddling my head

Besting the nascent rioter of my heart

Too young for grown up restrictions

 

I dream the tiara of teardrop pearls

Illumined by a pose of silver arabesques

Clutching jasmine white ballerina tulle

Cloud-like on my pate, glancing shoulders

Secreting vows we’d already pledged

As I waltz the aisle to my betrothed

 

I did not wear that jeweled tiara

But a twist of roses and baby’s breath

Garlanding my hair like whispered vows

Cascade of satin ribbons sighing after me

Nor on a glade of strewn petals and vines

But over a trampled path to my beloved

 

I remember the bent clasp of mindless jobs

Friday coins dropped in my blistered palm

Hungry for more than burned rice and coffee

Fighting for time to study, for rights of others

Struggling to hone my wits, find a moral core

Years of adulthood forced upon my head

 

Brutal decades of wifedom and motherhood

Of employee and citizen, friend and neighbor

Learning to share with ill and hungry strangers

The ones who plead for virtue within me

Begging my twin gifts of sorrow and charity

Now I seek only the crown of a good name

 

 

Just a thought 70

 

Photograph courtesy of Pixabay