10 shillings for a pair of stockings, that’s all she ever wanted.
Her trembling fingers fumble at the door to the past;
the present drops her memory—and she is no longer haunted.
Her 16-year-old hands could type and take notes in Pitman slightly slanted.
With a final glance back at pale dreams in shadows cast—
10 shillings for a pair of stockings, that’s all she ever wanted.
Her eyes close on her mother’s hands ironing clothes for pennies granted;
footsteps pacing in the distance waiting for her father to arrive home at long last.
The present drops her memory—and she is no longer haunted.
She leaves Coogee Street behind with hair bobbed and bouffanted.
A box of notes hidden in a bedside drawer; she refuses to be outclassed—
10 shillings for a pair of stockings, that’s all she ever wanted.
Lemonade fizz seated at a Laminex kitchen table; her heart remains enchanted—
let’s forget about rates of return and render time bypassed.
The present drops her memory—and she is no longer haunted.
Down Flinders Lane her pencil-skirted thoughts sauntered;
to the dark-haired man working in a garage, and there she saw time fluttering on the mast.
10 shillings for a pair of stockings, that’s all she ever wanted.
The present drops her memory—and she is no longer haunted.[1]This piece, like many of the villanelles I have written, is a way for me to document Mum’s recollection of her life, and to keep her love close. The phrases used in this villanelle are drawn … Continue reading
References
| ↑1 | This piece, like many of the villanelles I have written, is a way for me to document Mum’s recollection of her life, and to keep her love close. The phrases used in this villanelle are drawn from a conversation I had with her on 8th August, 2019 when I asked her to remember a time when she was worried that she didn’t have enough money. Mum immediately began talking about her childhood dreams of gaining an education to become a nurse or a teacher, the reality of needing to leave high school early to help support her family, and the joy of earning enough money to buy a nice pair of stockings. The photos of Mum are from the Barlow family album; the picture of the red laminated table is borrowed from a Red Formica online vintage store; and, the final photograph of Mum standing on Flinders Lane is one that I imagined from the details she shared through the creative assistance of canva. The writing of Australian poet-editor-critic Sarah Holland-Batt also sat very close as I wrote this villanelle – in particular Sarah’s 2023 Stella Award winning collection of poetry, The Jaguar, a “deeply humane portrait of a father’s Parkinson’s Disease, and a daughter forged by grief“. In Fishing for Lightning: The Spark of Writing Poetry (2021), Sarah notes that villanelles are one of the “trickiest forms to get right…and maligned for frequently producing bad poems” largely because of their complicated structure. With this warning-as-lamentation in mind, I am inspired to keep trying to write villanelles – they are the perfect form for me to turn over and over (perhaps a little obsessively) my relationship with Mum, the experience of memory loss illness as a daughter who adores her, and the ways in which we might remember, love in writing. |
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“We think back through our mothers if we are women” (Woolf). I am loving reading your thinking as you trace back through your mother’s memories. There is something so beautiful in the simplicity of her want for “10 shillings for pair of stockings.” Beautifully captured sentiments.
Thank you Karen – writing this piece reminded me of how important writing these memories are, how writing words about Mum’s life is somehow breathing life into her stories when she no longer can.