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Palace Revolutions

Anna Mioduchowska
From:   In-Between Seasons. Rowan Books, 1998.


for Basia

Saturday afternoon
a week before Easter
she closed her only bag
took one last look behind
made sure the faucets
were turned off
and thus began
her solitary trek, at least
so I imagine the tiny
scared determined egg
about to make its last
its only stand
in my Fallopian tubes

*

you can tell a provident woman
by the colour of her Easter bread
buttercup yellow
if she did not stint on egg-yolks
used the whites for meringues
Easter bread of a provident woman
crumbles in your hands
does not gum your throat shut
a provident woman has saved her eggs
for a long time before Easter

*
?
how to prepare
to meet one's destiny?
with fresh lipstick on, I suppose
the tiny scared determined egg
carries one tiny lipstick
in her bag: crystal rose
or 3 39 classique
preferably made in France
with just a hint of fragrance
for courage


*

the riff raff of this world
converge in waiting rooms
adhere to city buses, trains -
carefully laundered chauffeurs and
walls of private cars protect
the noses of the rest
from onions, old tobacco
perspiring flesh and menstruating women
for      don't you know
the smell of dirty woman is the worst
little girls hear and scrub
and scrub and scrub
their panties, sheets, their mattresses
defaced for life, for shame

*

the egg is not
a pampered prince who leaves
his palace for a while
in order to explore
the universe, instead
she is a homesick princess
who redeems herself from home
a one way street
the gates of home
forever closed
to roaming princesses
she knows and yet
a Greyhound ticket in her hand
she leaves one Saturday afternoon
in spring, the smell
of baking Easter bread
her only company
the coachman dozing in the shade
scared
tiny and determined



Anna Mioduchowska's works copyright © to the author.


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