Lace

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Lace
for Annabelle Collett


She was big in black
The mighty great aunt
Shiny and creaking head to toe
As she led me all the way
Through the pines to the letterbox

When we reached the road
She sat heaving on the bank
And drew up her brittle skirts
Layers of stiff yellowing calico
Bits of tattered linen, even ticking

To show the infant me
Her ancient marbled thighs
Beetroot and aubergine
“I’m dying in the legs first”
She said. “Never play cards with a stranger.”

Then came the froth in Mum’s top drawer
That pretty scented mess
Gold, fake pearls and petticoats
Nylons piled soft in the corner
Excited by marriage still fresh

We came down from the mountains
To catch a tram to Dimmey’s
Where the fitting woman said
“Pour your breast Darling
Pour the breast into the cup.”

From that trippy feminine shopful
Mummy’s money went too by cup
Off whizzing along the wire
To the lady in pointy glasses
In a fishtank up in the corner

To be honest we went there
For my first long pair of pants
I’m colourblind, but maroon I reckon
“Big man little boy trousers”
The woman who’d just touched Mum’s tit said

I spent a year feigning illness on Wednesdays
To be home alone with mother’s fluffy stuff
Marvelling on the mystery of breasts
Yearning to learn the water feel them
Swimming in the midnight river

You could catch a glimpse at prayer meetings
When the women took turns
To hike their frocking by the fire
Warming their giant bums
From flaming logs I’d cut

And the bright eyeful I got
When my Sunday School teacher
Leant into our car
That pink unsucked nipple
Suspended in its realm of lace

Her virgin face flushing
With shocked inhalation
Realizing she’d been sprung
The panicked grasp of organist’s fingers
Drawing shut that plain cotton blouse

Bad luck! But wilder fascination
Soon had the rough hand fumbling
Suspender clips rope petticoats
Dreaded step-ins roll-ons uplifts
French rolls crunchy with Gossamer

The Copper Seven came with pantyhose and hotpants
And lace lost instantly out
To blue singlets and army shirts
Whilst froth became something one pumped
On the shrinking lace of the glossies

Until arrived a feminist who understood
Mystique and silk, who would
Laugh at me wearing her knickers Francaise
Neath my Levis in the street
Knowing I’d bar up in the gunshop, discrete

But losing to her lacy wiles
While she sewed my sharkskin jacket
Moulding me her way
Part woman part hayseed boy
Part bagatelle, part toy

Lace was different after that
More a basic essential
In some corner of the life
Forgotten leftovers from leftover loves
Lost somewhere in a sock drawer

But reassuring in its constance
And the impossible combinations of frank and frothy
Frivolous and forlorn
Strands of melancholic politics
On the dirty old sheets of time

Or jumping fearless in your face
From a history of fractal needles
The refreshment of ancient yarns
A-buzz with the annoying tickle
Of lace left yet to adore.

And the flesh.
That’s what it’s for.



Philip White
Yangarra
March 2011




















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