The Brooklyn Rail

Blonde

I used to be brunette,
But now I am blonde.

I used to be a starlet,
But now I am a serious actress.

I used to want my mother’s love,
But now I love the camera.

I used to want my father’s love,
But now I marry powerful men.

I used to speak for myself,
But now I am a female impersonator.

I used to be pregnant,
But now I am myself a child.

I used to bask in the spotlight,
But now I keep them waiting on the set.

I used to reach for pills, for champagne,
But now my handprints are solidified in cement.

I used to exist,
But now I am the subject of a sexist bio-pic.

I used to pose nude,
But now I am naked.

Made in Hollywood

The rich are always
taking impromptu trips
to Europe—packing
their wardrobe trunks and
waving goodbye from
the decks of luxury liners
as streamers rain down
around them. They’re
always drinking bootleg
gin and frolicking on
somebody or other’s
millionaire father’s
festively lit yacht. Or
being ferried out
to a gambling ship
(run by gangsters)
anchored in the harbor.
For some, the Depression
is the best of times.
The women wear
clinging evening gowns
that look more like
satin slips, jewels
dripping from them
like tinsel. The men
wear tails, pull cigarettes
from engraved cases,
and bet all of it—
mountainous stacks
of chips—on roulette.
Meanwhile, our heroine
(who is really poor)
stands alone on deck.
We see her from the
back: blonde hair, fur
wrap, an ocean of
shimmering black silk.
She leans against the rail,
full moon frozen above
her like a silver coin,
wondering how long
she can keep up this
pretense of extravagance,
what with a threadbare
mother and younger
sister at home. For
others, the Depression
is the worst of times. But
everyone loves the
movies. Who wouldn’t
squander that moon,
as if it were their last
quarter, for a few
hours of make-believe
in a dark theater?

Clash Day

Junior High, 1966

It wasn’t sanctioned by the school. Kids spread the word among themselves which day
it would take place. Catch the principals and teachers off guard. The point was to wear
clothes that intentionally clashed. Incompatible patterns (polka dots and paisley, plaids
and stripes) and conflicting colors (purple and yellow, green and pink). Girls would
braid and curl their hair. Boys would wear different colored socks. Some kids even
showed up in mismatched shoes. A relief not to care, for a day, how you looked. To let
go of the pressure to be perfect, or at least not be singled out as flawed—too pimply, too
effeminate, too overweight. Another secret whispered by students: If you wore red and
black on Friday, it meant you were a “whore.” Those were the days when teachers and
administrators could lay hands on you. I once offended a substitute teacher during a
dictionary exercise, by blurting out a certain three-letter word. “Tit.” Which elicited
laughs from the class. She sent me to the vice principal’s office for punishment. He had
me bend over a desk and then swatted me with a wooden paddle. Once. Twice. Three
times. The word was in the dictionary, was all I could say in my own defense. I’m sure
I glared at that substitute with pure hatred when I returned to class. Which was held, I
distinctly remember, in one of the bungalows next to the P.E. field.

Fun Fact

Elizabeth Bishop saw Star Wars.

Photo I Didn’t Post on Instagram

Struck by pink on a walk

In Old Cartoons

If you are a child of the Great Depression, dressed in rags and always hungry, have
no fear. Tonight you can visit Dreamland and shake new clothes, like leaves, off the
limbs of a tree. You can pluck a cone from the ice cream patch and pour, from a calla
lily, syrup all over it. You’ll squeal with delight as you ride an animal cracker on the
chocolate merry-go-round cake. And catch, in a buttercup, popcorn falling like
snow. If, on the other hand, you find yourself painted on a Dutch plate, no worries.
When the grown-ups are asleep, you will come alive and dance, in your wooden
shoes, as the beer steins clap their lids in accompaniment. But oh, if you should find
yourself in Balloon Land, beware. You’re just filled with air and your skin is thin.
Lurking in the forest is the Pincushion Man, who wears a thimble for a hat and
throws sewing pins like daggers. And whose sole purpose is to pop you!

The Prom Dress Thief

for Camille Guthrie

One by one, prom dresses began to disappear from the girls’ dormitory rooms. Who
was stealing them, and why? Naturally the girls were distraught at this rash of
thefts. Their strapless, full-skirted satin gowns—pink, yellow, aqua, lavender—
overlaid   with   tulle   and   layers   of   lace ruffles,   were   precious   flowers   they
would  press  between the  pages of a  book of  poetry, if they  could.  At last,  the  thief
was  found out,  a girl whose  dorm room  was filthy with  formals:  prom  dresses  under
her bed,  prom dresses  stuffed in her  closet.  The girls,  as you can  imagine,  were
relieved  to retrieve  their  precious  dresses  (even though  they were  destined for  attic
or thrift shop). It is not known what punishment was meted out to the culprit for her crimes.

This occurred at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in the early 1950s.
Sylvia Plath was a student there at the time. In a letter, she waxed poetic about the
dress she wore to the Junior Prom: “silvery top-winged softly, with a tiny high waist
and a swoosh of white net with a very palish lavendar [sic] overtone!” Blessedly, it
did not fall prey to a prom dress thief. Today Plath’s “exquisite formal” is housed in
an archive at her alma mater, and is considered a piece of historical clothing.

Isabel Jewell

All but forgotten today, Isabel Jewell appeared, between 1932 and 1972, in over sixty
movies, usually in small and uncredited roles. She played stenographers and
telephone operators, prison laundry matrons and gun molls, hysterical mothers.
Sassy in one part, pitiable in the next, she is best remembered as “that white trash”
Emmy Slattery in the now disgraced Gone With the Wind—a lesson in the
impermanence of prestige. Whatever became of . . . Isabel Jewell? Petite and blonde, a
pretty girl from Wyoming, she married and divorced three times, and died, by her
own hand (barbiturates), at the age of sixty-four. Another lesson in impermanence.
Several nights ago, after watching A Tale of Two Cities, the 1935 version of Charles
Dickens’ yarn about the French Revolution, I decided that Isabel Jewell deserved an
ode. A petite ode, as enchanting as the sound of her name—that contains both a bell
and a jewel. She doesn’t appear until the end of the film, as the seamstress
condemned to die for simply befriending an aristocrat. Ronald Colman, the star of
the picture, comforts her as they’re waiting to be carted through the angry mob,
inspires her to be brave. At the foot of the guillotine he kisses her farewell. A kiss
from Ronald Colman—a matinee idol! O Isabel, how lightly you climbed the steps
to your death!

July 23, 2022

To Light Her Path

If the legend that
this was her final poem
is true, the last word
she wrote was “moon.”