Go Slow

This is my mother's red Morroco leather manicure set.

Here are the contents, most of them a complete mystery to me

but presumably not to her.

It sat on a proper dressing table.

And she sat in front of it,

properly.

Here is the sort of table that would do it justice and

there is the sort of person I might have been,

glimpsed in the mirror adjusting my earrings.

This is the contemplative pose that I might have struck while

toying with an emery board,

or applying make up.

There's that deeply self-absorbed gaze again,

the one that says,

'There's really no hurry'.

'Admire your pearls.'

'Brush your hair - 100 strokes each night.'

'Powder your face.'

'Put on your hat.'

'The world can wait.'