A dress at the back of my mother’s closet
calls my name. Mod and mini, bold
in colour, high-necked and cinched
at the waist, she’s begging me to
dance with her, like mum did at ten years
younger than I am now. She recalls a hand
at the small of her back, the sound
of my mother’s laugh, whirling
twirling twisting to Fleetwood Mac.
Mum smiles at the sight of us:
the dress’ design, she says, only
fit for a figure like mine, her
own having slipped from her grasp
as all youth does in time. She
treats the mirror like the sun,
centre of the universe and
impossible to look at for long,
though the weight she carries exists
almost entirely in her head.
Mother’s mother self-deprecates
while she eats a slice of cake on her
ninety-second birthday, as if the miracle
of her supple body is not the very thing
we are celebrating. Never mind the
children her hips bore, and the child her
child’s hips gave, who is wearing a dress
that remembers only a soft caress,
laughter and the feeling of my mother,
spinning, once free from that ugly
inheritance.
Raised in the Canadian prairies, Glennys Egan writes poetry in Ottawa, Canada, where she works for the government like everyone else. Her work has been published in Taco Bell Quarterly, The Daily Drunk, Nymphs and other lovely places. You can find her and her dog, Boris, online at @gleegz.