New York

The wing flirts with oncoming night,
dancing with dark and shadows.
A blanket of shimmering light
spreads as far as I can see.
I think of gathering it up
and presenting it to Grandma's
Singer sewing machine.

Back home in the light of one small lamp
her machine hums softly for her,
she and it working as one,
each no more than an extension of the other.
This woman-machine
defies logic, creating exquisite clothes
one would not think such a
mismatched pair
of wrinkled lady and rusty noisy machine
left over from another age
could fashion.

If the blanked outside my window
was set upon Grandma's table
left to the care of she and the Singer,
it would perhaps be molded
into a risque evening gown.
The seductive shimmering robe
would follow closely the curves
of any body it draped across,
winking softly as it played wanton
games with light and shadow.

The illusory dress jolts from thought
as I am jostled
in my straight-backed
worn to the floatble cushion seat.

I look at my table with the
crumpled pretzel wrapper clinging
to the bottom of my dewy
plastic cup, condensation pouring
down the sides, born from
cool of iced Ginger Ale.
Accompanied by the rustle
of garbage bag filled with
napkins and pretzel wrappers,
the stewardess steps up the aisle
and squirrels my garbage
into the bag with all the rest.

Back outside the window
my potential gown has dissipated
into a mass of broken lights, no longer
meshed into the breathtaking
glitter blanked that Grandma
and her Singer would have coveted.

- Kathryn Krueger, 1997

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.