Mrs. Donaghy

Your dress from twenty years ago
squeezes you like a corset.

When you were a teenager you daubed
black shoe polish to cover in
your thin eyebrows
and prayed it wouldn't rain.

Tonight you are more polished, brushing
your chin and the slopes of your face
as delicately as an archaeologist
brushing fragile stones.

Your teenage daughter calls from the next room.
She fills the room like perfume.
The boys tonight will be fireflies
anxious to display their voltage.

They will follow her everywhere
while you watch, amused.

You take a calcium pill to slow the
erosion of your bones. A cabinet
of vitamins and supplements
stares back at you.

Are you ready? your daughter shouts.
She is like a vase in the middle
of a table. The world's center
our dinner party will revolve around.

Yes, you answer. You lacquer your mouth
with lipstick, straighten your smile.
Each year it gets harder
to gloss over the significance
of young men calling you

"Mrs..."


Bob is a programmer living in Redwood City, CA. Recent work of his can be found at Eclectica, Lucid Rhythms, Poetry Friends and Halfway Down the Stairs.