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The Girl in the Catalog Speaks

Please, I beg you,
find some scissors
and set me free.
Release me
from this empty space,
this frozen moment.
Help me put down
the pink paisley cinch sack
I’ve had in my hand since
long before the season.
Let me have my own
edges. Cut carefully
around my limbs,
my fingers, the strands
of my fan-blown hair.
Once I’m out, please
don’t let me flop.
Give me some cardboard
backbone—a bit of box
will do. Paste it on.
Snip my feet. Slip a tab
into the slots and help me stand
on my own. I wouldn’t mind
some different clothes—
long jean shorts in lime or peach
a ruched knit tank in ultramarine,
or maybe a pine green taffeta skort.
I think you’ll find
they all come in my size.
How I long to drive around
in a shoe box of friends
from other pages,
other companies.
Perhaps we could pose
for a picnic on the lawn,
but please, I beg you,
don’t leave me
in the rain.

 

Lately I’ve been reading blog posts and internet essays about the tradition of making paper dolls. Girls (and boys?) used to wait for the new Sears catalog to arrive knowing that meant it was safe to cut up the old one. The girls would cut out figures, clothes, furniture, and household objects. They would paste them to cardboard and fold the bottom edge back so the pieces could stand. Some girls made box houses for their dolls. Others made cars out of shoeboxes. After the catalogs had been cut to shreds, they went to the outhouse for their third and final use.

For more Poetry Friday visit Anastasia Suen at Poet!Poet!

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2014, all rights reserved

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Our Love

Should I compare our love to this full moon?
No way! Each month its light takes off alone.
A rose? The petals swoon and fray too soon.
Our aging love is like an old, gray stone.
We share this ever-present weight, too great
To move, too there to notice much, unless
You stumble into it. Your toe’s poor fate
Reminds you to regard what you possess.
The endless sometime flow of rain and tears,
Unfinished kids, dishes, bills, day and night,
The moments snatched from sleep for all these years,
Has rubbed our stone until it’s smooth and right.
Who cares that others don’t discern its shine.
This old, gray stone is only yours and mine.

 

So many songs, stories, and poems are about the excitement and/or despair of early love. What about lasting love? Does anyone have a favorite text about love that stands the test of time?

 

For more Poetry Friday visit Linda at TeacherDance.

© Elizabeth Steinglass, 2013, all rights reserved