Monday, November 8, 2010

smudges

The Dalmatian woman
Bathed in evening
Walked the dusty back lanes of Poughkeepsie
And watched enviously from the corner
As women with tight dresses hung clothes on their
Tight lines
She dropped her first spot in a yard full of rose petals
Believing the opal would blend with the crimson
Rather than stand out
Like a sore green thumb
A bearded, shirtless man
Splashed stagnant rainwater on her dress
As he spun past
On his bicycle with bells and a basket
One spot lost
Many gained
She shook off her apron in an alley
Behind a restaurant that smelled of
Sirloin and supercilious
Folk
And thus it continued
Until she was almost home
All the wetness that once soaked her
The spots that once marred her
Were slowly drying, fading, dying away
And she walked into her tiny house
The paltriest one on the block
Ran a bath and washed away the last remnants of
Her soul
She drudgingly walked toward bed
Pure
Clean
Ordinary
But before climbing into the cool, pressed sheets
She reached into the nightstand and felt around in the dark for her marker
Gingerly she drew
In her inner elbow crease
The smallest imaginable dot
No larger than a needlepoint
And fell back onto the overstuffed pillows
Content, assured in the fact that
She still had
An identity
A spot
A smudge
Of character.


6 comments:

Ashley Archibald said...

beautiful poem

vintch said...

thank you!:)

Peaches said...

Ms. Vintch, did you write this? It's lovely.

vintch said...

why hello peaches! i did indeed write this..i had a slow day at the office one afternoon:) thank you for your sweet compliment:)

charla beth said...

this made my heart hurt
and rejoice all at the same time.

what a beautiful piece.

Anonymous said...

A beautiful poem! One that I will definitely copy down in my journal to remember.

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