ManicDDaily

Free That Day

“so, that’s the Hall of Mirrors,” I said,
hoisting my little one by her waist–not so little–nine–
but no way could she tiptoe to the height of the paned
glass–
“where they signed some big treaties–um–”
darting looks-out–  “World War I–”

the red checks of her dress’s skirt bunched,
in my hold, into the flower sprigs of
the bodice, a pattern of mismatch like
our socks, after travel, our feet now
interlopers in the gravel that bordered
the razor-sharp lawn, there, on the other side
of the bunted rope
we’d just slipped around–

”Can you see?” to her older sister.
Balancing her too then
on my braced knee, against
the stares peering back at us–
our own in the blinked
sheen–so hot, a record
for Paris–
“They’re super tarnished
anyway–”

“Yeah, it is huge–”
But no guards, it seemed, the one day of the week
the Palace was closed,
not that saw us scooting back to the gardens–”really the best part–”
with its avenues of shrubbed poodle tail
where one or two capped men, sitting beside
the refracted bronze of dolphin leap and nymphic breast–
“and, at least, it’s not crowded–”
found sun translated to breeze.

That may be the day I remember best
of that whole trip
when the guidebook slipped past me
and we ended up seeing ourselves
in historical glass, as if we too
were a secret part of it,
nearly always the way
of women and young girls.

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I realized once I started this that I had already written about the same incident!  (Agh.)  It has to do with a day we went to Versailles and the palace turned out to be closed.  But that poem is a little bit different and this is this poem–very much a draft!– and certain memories are rather indelible I guess.  At any rate, here’s my fifth this April, posted for the prompt of the wonderful Grace (of Everyday Amazing) on ‘mirrors’ on real toads.