An early morning bath.

 Sluiced and powdered,

hair in rags the night before.

And  don’t you DARE get them wet.

Shimmying on stiff white petticoats,

ankle socks smelling of sunlight,

new shoes for the occasion,

pearlised to match the missal and the rosary.

Then the crowning moment,

everybody holds their breath as the dress is lifted from it’s vinyl shroud.

Brought down from back bedroom wardrobe or back of door,

placed over the head of the tiny virgin.

Fitted, nimble fingers pulling pins and straightening lace

setting a veil atop a mess of ringlets

and for some, the common or the foreign,

tiny silver crosses depending from each ear.

Oohs and Ahhs from aunties, holding their handbags on their knee,

Taking out a lace edged hankie, remembering the times that they wore white.

Hoping this child would wear it twice.

 

 

 

This is a work in progress, posted to see if it's resonant to anyone other than me and whether you require a shared (catholic) heritage for it to stand. I also think it may want to be prose,(oh my god....Noooo) what do you think?