THE RED DRESS 1969.

A GIRL AND HER MOTHER'S RED DRESS IN 1969

Sophia sorts through
her parents' room;
they're out for the day,
some Polish old comrades

meeting of her father's,
old war pals. She opens up
the old wardrobe, sorts
through things, takes out

her mother's old dresses
and some new ones, puts
them on the bed. She likes
a red one, old but well kept.

She ponders, she decides
to try it on. She undresses
from her own jeans and top
and puts on the old red dress

and looks at herself in the
wardrobe mirror. Her mother
must have been her size back
then, it fits like it was made

for her. She does a twirl, looks
back at her a*s, her thighs,
turns to the front and stares
at her breasts. She doesn't

remember her mother wearing
the dress, not a dress she recalls
her mother wearing at all. She
looks down, it comes just below

the knees, although she's taller
than her mother, so it would
come lower on her mother.
She embraces herself as if

Benedict were there behind her
putting his arms around her
and breathing on her neck.
She stares at herself in the mirror;

stares at her full length. She
smells the material. It smells
of stale perfume, but not horrible
or clammy. She walks around

the room in it; looks at herself
in the mirror across the room.
She'd ask her mother if she could
borrow it, but then she'd have to

say she'd been in her mother's wardrobe
and that would cause hell with her
father and she didn't want that. She
take off the dress and stands there

in her bra and panties, and puts the
dress back on the hanger, and puts
it back with the other dresses where
she found it the wardrobe, in the right

place, and pushes the clothes back as
far as shes can recall in the order they
were, and closes the wardrobe door.
She dresses back in her jeans and top.

She pauses by the bed. The crucifix over
the bed. The Crucified staring down
pityingly. She touches the bed with her
fingers. She'd like to bring Benedict here;

make love here. But not after last time
in her room and her parents came back
after and that was too close. And some
neighbour had split on her and said

they'd seen young man and her come
here while her parents were out and her
father gave her the third degree over it.
Her father said she can only bring the

boy when they were home. Couldn't bring
Benedict back for sex while they were
downstairs sitting watching TV and
drinking their wine and such, and not

in her parent's bed, not beneath the
Crucified, except in her blonde haired head.