Summer Dresses by Jane Urquhart

urquhart summer

urquhart summer
Crown Trent bone china cup and saucer flowered Niagara Falls souvenir

Later

flowered cups she drinks
her tea from
echo in her summer
dresses

she is an old woman
contemplating
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡unlaced shoes

memory all around her
like the river of that vein
in one thin hand

against a powdered cheek

behind a cedar door
she feels compelled to organize
the souvenir of wardrobe

(her closet
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡dark
with flowered cloth)

she understands the fabrics
of identity
and reaches for her pen again

the document survives for years

 

Source: Urquhart, Jane. False Shuffles. Victoria: Press Porcépic, 1982. Section entitled The Undertaker’s Bride. 

Click to see more of Urquhart’s The Undertaker’s Bride poems

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