Poem: Dressing Up

Dressing Up

By Lorraine McGibney
QuailBellMagazine.com
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*Editor's Note: Was previously published in the October issue (2015) of The Honest Ulsterman, www.humag.co.

I crept the three steps to
your room, which smelt 
of musty aged breath
and butterfly panic.

Sandwiched between the glass
and a chink in the net curtains,
a Red Admiral, whose
fluttering mirrored my
tiptoed approach.
I stumbled over slippers 
to your jewellery box.
Fishing out pearls and the ruby ring,
that swam off my finger and dropped
back home into knotty chains and 
clip-on earrings. 
Brooches from another life 
paid for, with dollars
to pin on collars of real fur.
Sparkles and hallmarks
piled up, a pyramid displaced
in this fisherman's cottage.
You called me for lunch,
puffing upstairs, flapping by in a
flour cloud with your 
dentures clapping, in a slow applause--
making a tumble of your speech.
Waiting for the tart to cook,
bubbling under with 
homegrown apples,
we sat impatient
as cinnamon, allspice and 
cloves wafted in droves
from the scullery.
You promised a tomorrow slice 
as the Ford Orion arrived
early with your daughter,
to take me home