Time traveller

The girl on the underground is a sartorial time traveller.
Navy high waisted pencil skirt tightens over her ripened
bottom, blue pinstripe shirt, demurely buttoned up to the
collar, sets her rocket breasts on a youthful trajectory.
Despite the carriage’s bumper car jolting, she balances on
death defying stilettos like an accomplished trapeze artist.
Although her Siamese cat’s eyes peep out through letter box
spectacles and her harvest of blonde hair is gathered into a
generous bun, this girl is not waiting to be transformed in a
‘Why you are beautiful Miss Jones’ revelation, because like
Marilyn in that dress, she is more erotic in her 50s costume
than standing stark naked on the tube. Yet there are no Sid
James remarks from the suited men, builders in dusty denims
and youths in shorts, who surrounded by casual girls oozing
flesh like a gallery of Reuben’s nudes, stare only at her and pant.

Last Rites

She went to Boots from habit, selecting Rimmel
because neither woman had ever touched the brand.

A man led her into the grisly Santa’s Grotto,
then reassuringly stood sentinel.

At first sight, shock, her mother appeared to have
been snatched by grave robbers.

She would never have chosen to be seen dead in
the elaborate white funeral gown.

The daughter’s final duty now to protect her from
prying eyes that might pay a peep show visit.

Striking up a one sided conversation, like a
hairdresser with a darkly quiet client,

she forced her fingers to dab the make up on, tolerating
the clammy, stiffened flesh for only a few minutes.

This time the cosmetic alchemy failed to conjure
up her face, casting instead the indelible image

that her mother had sunk into a profound sulk.