In The Tulip Dress In Plato's Cave

[a little after Delmore Schwarz]

in a contrary season or so it seemed

words were never good enough.

they might be gold plated,

wine-coloured,

rose-tattooed with cockatoos,

rainbow banded

as bubbles floating away from you alas,

all of these at the same time.

speaking to one or a thousand's thousand

always you went home tardy, after school's

apple cheeked child 

wondering what went wrong almost

used to it.

or back to the office where the

typewriter broke down the keys

all jammed and nobody knew

how to change the ribbon,

least of all you.

or just getting off the bus

no straight shot, either: 

headed into the tall grasses

when the bus driver through

the still-open door

shouts something after you

something uncomplimentary so the remaining passengers

can hear it and the people already home across the street 

just sitting down to their fried eggplant and

saying: I told you so....

so you feel like strawberry ice melted-

the tag-end of the birthday guests

with the most crumpled favor.

anyway. you say to yourself. anyway...

they've let you know something was missing;

something you couldn't put your finger on

even in white velvet, empire-styled

with real pearl buttons

even if you had assorted fingers

in every flavour like bright icicle pops

and could deliver by heart free ice cream

and the history of poetry in sand paintings

even if you said nothing at all

it wouldn't be solved.

or dissolved like soda pop fizz.

or only nodded.

something was wrong

a thing impossible to pinpoint

by those trading glances over your shoulder

knowingly, their Maybelline arched brows arched

more furrily.

even if you were the one who gave the garden party

and wore the perfect garden party dress: the tulip print:

flounced, with the lime green petticoats;

in the shop window for weeks 

(the one with the grass-green sash).

even if you wrote the Dictionary yourself, 

(or had ancestors that did) the first first one

by flint-light struck or scrunching down in Plato's cave

scibbling "moonlight", whispering, moonlight...

hunched away from the shadow lovers

mary angela douglas 24 may 2014;rev. 12 june 2014

P.S. of course the title occurred to me relative to the Delmore Scwartz poem as a variation on Plato's Myth of the Cave.

but - my poem occupies entirely different territories than his.r