Georgetown

A rainy weekday afternoon in Georgetown

The street is full of well-dressed women

clip-clopping to and fro.
I am a thrown-together woman
with no particular place to go.

I have a few hours free

from children's quarrels and ABCs,
And find myself in the enchanted halls
where merchants serve liberal proclivity.

Stiletto shoes with Italian names,
Parfum from France, and lace from Spain:
A patina of gorgeous from each arcade.
No rinky-dink bargains. Nothing mundane.

The well-dressed women race in the streets:
They have no dilly-dally time today.
They have careers and social obligations:
Theirs is not to seize the day.

I find a treasure for my beloved
and touch and smell and look my all.

I imagine myself a well-dressed woman

-pleasant, but fruitless after all.

I seize the day and seize some more
when I return from my afternoon stroll.
Children caper at the door:
Miraculous. Glorious. Wonderful.

I am a thrown-together woman.
Yells and smells of moppet and mite,

pose my hows and compose my whys.
Carpe diem, joyful soul, grasp the day while there's yet light.

Kristin H. Kent
March 2010