hang them out in the lavendered sun ro dry
unabashedly to wave as the train flies by.
why not? the air is crisp linen.
the sunflowers leaning over the stars
eclipse them, utterly.
and then it's moonlight and the dew is
falling, my fairy tale
let me wash the news out of your eyes;
dusk blue is everywhere- fresh-checked,
washed in, it will not fade.
amazement's catalog burned up the afternoons,
don't you remember? frosted over,
six weeks before Christmas;
wish books, Mama called them then:
those glossy catalogues brick thick with the print of
Elysium, evergreen scented ink you lived to bre-e-athe
turning straight to the doll section.
all my books are wish books now
wishing on the plasticine shelves
they're humming summers surreptitiously:
straight from SBS in Englewood, New Jersey
dimpling, falling over themselves
to glow in tattered bindings
blindingly infused with the gold
of personal illuminations,
and better than angelic...
I'm sewing up the distances now,
they're raveling, I said to Mama
eating strawberries and cream
in her particular heaven.
I'm living seem to seem Now.
let's order a life-sized castle, prefab from Sear's and Roebuck:
and pass the divinity candy if you please
here's the
exhibition you barely have time to see
from the Amtrak window in the breeze
5 chintz dresses just for me
in pink, blue, yellow, mint and dream
and head-over-heels on the clothesline,
crowded with roses-
mary angela douglas 10 October 2013
Note to Reader: SBS in the poem refers to Scholastic Book Services. You could get paperbacks then for a long time (abridged classics for children and other children's books, 4 for 25 cents apiece ). They arrived in crackling brown paper tied with string and I liked to order them not only in school from the classroom newsletter, but during the summer and have them arrive in the mail like Aladdin's paper treasure...At that time they were located in Englewood, NJ and ever since I have had an almost mystical feeling about that town.
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