Member-only story
Poetry
New Clothes
Sometimes experimentation pays off
During the time in my life when I worked for churches, I had become rather predictable, I suppose. It could have been an early indication of the expectations others have of older women. Whatever it was, one day I wore something different to work. This surprised my boss, I guess. This poem is a vignette of that morning.
He walks into the room
Stops, eyeing my outfit
“I’ve never expected to see you
In anything like that,” he says
“That’s the point,” I laugh
“I took a risk”
As I walk across the parking lot,
A homeless woman
Leaning against the wall calls out
“Ma’am, ma’am! You look
Fabulous today!”
She’s here, most every week
For breakfast, a shower, a new set of clothes
She notices I look different, somehow new
Later, a coworker says to me, unasked
“You took a risk and it worked!
Good job.”
At my desk, I feel different
Watching the homeless woman
Bounce away in new sneakers, smiling
Buttoning the jacket she did not have
When she arrived
16 November 2015
