JUMBLED SEWING BASKET, GREEN AND WHITE WICKER (SECOND VERSION)

jumbled sewing basket, green and white wicker:
of reading! coloured threads and gilded, too;
strange bits of tulle, and on the underside,
sunset lamé, and pinking shears, if you want
to get fancy. silks from the first fairytales,
a spool of dreaming...rhinestone button REELING

summer brocades and little gold thimbles from the fairy haunts,
Grandmother said. cathedral floss and something
lost and patches from your mother's dresses,

during the Depression

loveliest of all: sprigged lavender, tangerine or rosy.

plus plus plus chocolate bars and ruby delicious apples.
(they're from the cupboard, stenciled in

Pennsylvania Dutch, I wished, quickly, in pink and green

with lemon rick-rack nodding yes in the dream; all of the above).

is that too much description said the teacher, gently-

dressed in her leading questions, back-to-back.
you didn't know my Grandmother, did you?

I said, mysteriously, hummingbird-sipping
my fizzing coke.

mary angela douglas 19 june 2014;rev. 24 january 2018
(and if you think by revised I mean I took stuff OUT of the poem, haha, you are way off track.)

Note on the Poem: In school I often got in trouble for using too many adjectives. Not much has changed.

Of course we didn't drink cokes in the classroom. The poem is me going back to my teacher, coca cola in hand and explaining in this rhapsodic way that I was STILL dedicated to using AS MANY ADJECTIVES AS IT TAKES TO GET THE PICTURE PAINTED!!

Every day after school I fixed my grandmother and I a coke over ice and we sat and talked about the day and other things and used as many adjectives as possible!