Note: Today’s poem is a guest post from Jodie Meyn who writes You are Here, the life and letters of a Midwest Housewife.
Gilded Age
Once upon a gilded age We waltzed in layers of lace, Flaunted silks on chiffons on taffeta. Molly Browns on the road from nowhere Dancing in red gowns, sleeping in brass beds We embroidered our comforts, Draped our mahogany in doilies, Our households in curtains and cloths. On certain nights, we’d wear ALL the jewels Broaches on pearls on diamonds. We coveted a stole, the richness And warmth of fur. Traded that in For shoulder pads and pastel Golden Girls’ dresses, white heels and nylons, Style and set do's ala AquaNet, Material girls and piles of pop princesses. And now our tiaras are our daughters Our diamonds in pink dorm rooms, Our peridots of promise on display. They lip-sync their waltzes and collapse Into a bed of soft riches, delivered from Every corner of China via an Amazonian warehouse The triumph of their moving up To this comfortable life of learning, Teetering with trepidation on a two foot high wire Above a cloud of care Is our end of summer ball. We’ve checked these boxes and we Keep them safe in boxes and we fill Their room with boxes to make sure they Have boxes of their own to check, So that we can wear them, show them off, These colorful feathers in our social haberdashery. Their beautiful lives adorn us, Cover our aging necks. We wear quiet gloves in tenderest attention Tread lightly on the floorboards of their youth So fleeting and fraught and fun. We curate and collect Our tastefully gaudy, gilded life Covering our pride and trepidation In ball gowns of content Whose layers, in greatest satisfaction, Rattle and rustle when we dance.
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