Like Marilyn

In those old photographs, I see a teenager,
pale and lacking confidence, happy to allow
mother or sister-in-law to take over for a while,
united in womanhood, your blonde hair
curled around your face, like Marilyn’s.

I arrived too soon. The sparkle of the glamorous life
you hoped for faded into monochrome. You grew up
before your time – no more dancing on a Saturday night.
In a small room watching her on a black and white TV,
your smile flickered and flamed – just like Marilyn’s.

Kim M. Russell, 31st January 2019

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads Instructions for Living a Life: A Tribute to Poets of Our Time

Kerry reminds us that January 2019 is the month when the world lost the voice that will always be Mary Oliver. She says that the death of a poet, one of our time, always strikes a chill of fear into her heart and she asks why do we only really pay attention to a poet’s body of work once they have passed away?

Kerry would like us to think about who remains? Who are the poets – still living – who speak to us in a profound way? For this challenge, she would like us to share a quote from a contemporary poet’s work and write a poem as a tribute to his/her style, voice, themes, wisdom.

January is also the month in which my mother died, two years ago, so I have chosen Carol Ann Duffy to inspire me with her poem ‘Before You Were Mine’. https://genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-before-you-were-mine-annotated

My quotation is: “That glamorous love lasts / where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.”