—Photo by Joyce Odam
MY MOTHER AS A FAMOUS MODEL
(based on Erte’s Fashion Designs,
illustrations
from Harper’s Bazaar,
l9l8-l932)
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento
In dimensionless black and
white
the women come onto the stage
in their designer dresses;
how fashionable they are—
sophisticated ladies
who know how to move
in languorous disdain
under spotlights of
admiration.
One of them is my mother—
or maybe
she only looks like my
mother,
but taller.
The women inter-weave
and refuse to smile.
They wear hats with feathers,
and long graceful beads,
and their hands
are useless but beautiful.
My mother
looks past me
to some far off mirror.
The mirror smiles,
but she keeps
a composed expression.
Her eyes cloud
with a look I have seen
before.
I remember her like this
from a distance too far to
cross.
I want to speak to her,
but she is looking beyond me,
through the mirror
which closes up behind me.
I feel transparent.
I cannot hold her image any
longer.
(first pub. in The
Listening Eye, 1998)
________________________
HER BEDROOM
—Joyce Odam
closet full of dusty clothes
silver-veined dresses
squashed party wear
stained lace and fur
unwashables
a leopard coat and hat
coat-pin
some jewels missing
high-heels lined up
behind the slippers
on the dresser a jewel box
and perfume bottles
all shoved back
and in the grimy mirror
in diligent reflection,
in rows and rows,
white plastic vials
of prescriptions
—Photo by Joyce Odam
EMERGING
—Joyce Odam
I stole the powder, wore the
beads,
tried on the gowns and posed
for my emerging beauty—
watched the mirror love me
while I found my new
dimension,
alone at her dresser, with
her things—
all touched and rearranged,
while she was off somewhere,
unmindful of my forbiddance—
overstepping into her essence
with my own—to be the
echo of my mother, role model, rival.
________________________
CONCEPT IN TONES OF COLOR AND LIGHT
(after The Wall of Life, 1959 –George Constant)
—Joyce Odam
As in my early time, the wall of life seemed
made of colored stones,
divided by lines of
white—like those pretty
stones stuck on the
wall of a house I used to
pass. I’d stand there
trying to pick them off the
corner of the wall
to keep for treasure. Today I
thought I saw
that childhood wall again in
the light of an
older day—this time it glowed—the
stones
like jewels, the painted
light hitting them
just right, patterned
together in deliberate
design: the blue ones
interlocked—as if
made of hands guarding a
secret doorway.
I wanted to enter… see what was behind…
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
BLACK BEADS
—Joyce Odam
—Joyce Odam
I wear black beads in
winter.
Am I sad?
I wear the black of
ceremony,
dimensionless and closed,
a privacy—
a sentimental flaw—
or just a grief,
too long refused.
__________________
Thanks to Joyce Odam for today's tasty talk of Mom's Jewelry Box, last week's Seed of the Week!
Where does the wild goose go? Write about it for our Seed of the Week (here's a link to the lyrics: www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/laine-frankie/cry-of-the-wild-goose-12554.html) and send your poetic travels to kathykieth@hotmail.com
__________________
—Medusa
—Photo by Joyce Odam