Gonna buy me some fabric at the store by the coastal mystery, the one with no roof
and no walls ‘cept for rows and rows of fabric rolled up waiting for newness and creative wonder
and a woman whose hair is white, her hands full of keys, so many keys as she laughs at me, but not mocking.
She’s on the shoreline in the white sand at the counter and the cash register is awaiting her usual purchase. As we laugh and talk, her man is hiding amongst all those reams of fabric, spying out at me, knowing.
His dark highlights contrast against all the pale sand and call to a sea just within reach.
He trusts implicitly the woman with all those keys.
Gonna make me some bloomers from the fabric or, maybe no, I’ll do what the beautiful woman told me to do, “Order it from a catalog” ’cause…
I’ll be too busy having fun, too much going on to bother with patterns and eyelet fabric. Or sewing machines.
But fabric, I’ll abide. It hides all the best secrets and covers the future in white refusal of shame.
Gonna go find those hair bands and all the jewel-toned loose ends plaited neatly into silver sync.
And I will laugh.
And laugh. As the man behind the bolts of fabric, standing there in his safe fear-filled haven hides
and waits for the bloomers to reveal his best days: Unafraid.
One day, I’ll see his face.
J. Ruth Kelly 
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