Making An Appearance

The other females wear fascinators,
their hats tentacled with wire
and gauze. Some piled high
with cabbage leaves of fabric.

She enters the garden
with aquatic poise, wide-brimmed
and floral scarf rippling in the heat
like an underwater strand of coral.

Her hair is short, moussed back
under black straw. Most of it
she cut while visiting a temple
in Mumbai. Her yardage of brunette silk
spilled into a basket on the steps.
Some wind rose off the river
blending in a cool psalm of bells,
a bronzed blessing near twilight.

Around her now, rich women chime-in
about Monaco, the runaway bride
who went off to Paris for shoes,
whose delicate hands
may have laced and unlaced,
strapped and unstrapped
a hundred pairs before sighting
the flawless couple.

Yet, Solange thinks of the girl
with brittle nails but tender fingertips
who twists and untwists
those donated strands, a dose
of similar color, feminine splendor.
Nothing synthetic
like the drug that causes
her scalp to shed, its drip
of rain killing dark blossoms
her body cannot abide.
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Note -- The lovely art deco painting by French artist, Marie-France Riviere, is entitled, "Femme-Fleur". More of her evocative work can be seen at her on-line gallery --- www.griviere.com/expo2000.