STILL DREAMING IT ALL UP

how grown up we felt at our small desks
reading The Weekly Reader hot off the press
take one and pass it back

(with color illustrations, graphs)

the childsize news in brief;
the smell of newsprint like a kind of faith.
even if we weren't the hall monitors

the sugar plums in the play
we still had our allowance
for the book fairs in late may

like a renaissance on parade

so they seem to me, looking back
a lavish paegentry
or later ordering from the summer magazines

four paperbacks for a dollar choose carefully
like holiday candy sight unseen
but with thrilling pint sized blurbs

will you have orange, or raspberry creams?

imagine this adventure under leafy trees...
the high seas, the royal intrigues, or
Jane Eyre, when the lightning struck the oak

then meadowsweet

or rainsoaked on the road to who knows where...you follow her there

while sipping lemonade and wearing your plastic shades with rhinestones
purchased at the five and dime.
could later riches ever measure up in Time

I would have thought had I been cognizant
enough in a light summer dress at the

jr. high graduation
gardenias in my hair. 

in a shirtwaist of cutwork percale
still dreaming it all up.

mary angela douglas 21 march 2017;rev. 9 june 2022