What the woodwork reveals

 

Walking with a limp, a lockstephopstep

that jolts hip and frame down Main Street

I see an unnoticed-until-this-day array of hobbling, rollicking, movement-challenged gimps like me,

the Zimmer-pushing halt and lame.

 

A phenomenon first experienced to this extent

when pregnant and, surely,

half the eligible population in the Capital and the burbs

was enceinte

or postpartum with babe in arms or pram.

 

Like to like.

Limp to limp.

Baby blimp to blimp.

 

Bemused, I hobble on.

 

Robyn Lance

 

The Three Graces, National Gallery of Scotland

 

Hobbemas and Rubens hang so high

they can only be viewed at a tiptoe stretch.

 

Visitors are locked into looking at crowded walls

When twelve chimes sound at ten past the hour.

 

Concessions are made for a clock

that’s ticked off several centuries.

 

From portraits, idylls and war, I turn

to where, unclad, unshod and unashamed,

 

(no hint of a blush on their bare white skin)

the Three Graces embrace.

 

Canova carved no more smooth, curved

marble flesh than that which serves them well.

 

Hour by hour the daughters of Zeus hold their sisterly pose

with not one twitch of the nose, twinkle of toes or forty wink doze.

Robyn Lance

 

Putting on her face

 

Dressed in brassiere,

half slip and pearls,

my mother starts the ritual

that absorbs her girl.

 

Hair clips press kiss curls

in front of each ear,

hot rollers tame tresses

of unruly brown hair.

 

Rich pale pink lotion

Oil of Olay

patted from palms

to her skin every day.

 

Dusting of powder

from petit point compact,

curve of mascara

in liquid blue-black.

 

A cursory kiss

on white tissue fold,

leaving its imprint,

crimson and bold.

 

She envelops the child

in a hug of perfume,

the smell of which later

takes her back to that room

 

to run through the replay

of a scented embrace

and the going-out ritual

of putting on her face.

 

Robyn Lance