A Woman's Touch

THINKING OF MOTHER'S DAY

Some inspiring poems I heard

during April

National Poetry Month

led me to write:

A WOMEN’S TOUCH

I love the poems that women write.

Poems about white sheets 

drying on a clothes line in the sun.

I can hear the children running

through those starchy white tunnels

squealing with laughter.

All those Mothers, delicate and moist

from earnest scrubbing and finishing touches.

Hands that soothed fevered brows,

or slapped the beJesus

out of a backtalking teenager.

A woman’s touch is a fine art in itself,

deftly turning a page 

in the middle of Polonaise, 

or smooth and sultry, 

a hand sliding down a satin slip,

sleek and soft,

smelling of lavender

or White Gardenia.

Where are those dust-powdery teachers, now?

What were their names?

Mrs. Angel or Mrs. Cotton,

with glasses hanging on a thin chain

a handkerchief tucked in the bosom

of a dark green gabardine dress.

Where is that soft voice 

asking us eight-year-old girls, 

“What is grace?”

“The unmerited gift from God,”

we replied in unison.

Me and Mrs. Armstrong, 

one of those dust-powery teachers

Gordon Street Baptist Church 

Easter Egg Hunt (c. 1941)