Buy me a ribbon of hope, a chance to redeem what I’ve lost
to times when I dreamed her younger, prodigious and stately,
a movie star waiting for lust, buried in acres of malibu
so thick she blinks, a tickle threatens the head shot.
Hair pulled tight, shoulders bare, chin thrust outward-
beauty school taught her to pose and play the siren.
She earned her wages by wrapping hair tightly on rods
burning hotter than the small town Texas sun
and gossip kept her buoyant, attuned to rhythms beaten
out by tongues that clicked in double time, a drum line.
She spent her wages on glamorous pictures, seeking
a way to mend her threadbare, nylon, want-to-be-silk
existence, to become the topic of gossip the ladies
chittered and cooed while licking fingers, molding marcels.
She bought me a ribbon of hope, sepia tint
redemption in a scrapbook on my floor.
© 2003 Jason C. Jones