Pressed Flower

Pressed Flower                Frannie Zellman  

To the memory of my mother, Millicent Eunice Kant (1928-2014)

A paper cut out

Of gold in your hair,

With a white sash

And white silk scarf.

At six, you are a daisy.

You dance around the pole

And sing.

You forget the eye condition

They can’t cure.

When you are thirteen,

You skim the stage

In toe shoes, smiling magic

Into the hall.

You forget

That you're not dancer-thin.

When you are sixteen,

Your voice floats an aria

Onto the record.

Even Italian cannot capture

its fluid sweetness.

You sing and play by ear.

When you are twenty,

Fifteen men ask you out.

You smile and toss out

Words to amuse.

Instead you captivate -

More interesting than

Dewey and Russell.

You are a bouquet of flowers,

The sound of swift laughter,

Sun on the parkway.

But they tell you

the next performance schedule:

marriage, children.

Why couldn’t they have just let you play?