Peering Out From Behind My Mother’s Dress...... Poem by John Tansey

Peering out from behind my mother’s dress


Behind the sun-blown billows
of my mother’s dress

Following her to a department store
Pushing, through the circling rounders of clothes

As she perused the price tags,
Oblivious to where I was,

This ghost of a boy, wrapped in
The stores white sheets and silken shirts.

I would bounce like a flea
From carousel to carousel

Occasionally, knocking dresses from their trees,
Pushing through worlds of color and fabric

The depth in degrees
Of spring colors turning to the cotton wools of “back to School”Autumn

Like the fading face print through a curtain
Muezzlin on a breezy day

Silks, cottons, nylons and stoles
Each one, a caul breaching so I could come through to the other side

like a dog, leaning his face out of a car window
Skin sifting the breeze.

And being reborn, pop my head
From between the clothes saying, “here I am”

At five, just the pleasure of being swaddled
With another layer of cloth between me and the world.

It happens now that I am older,
I must cover myself with blankets, sheets and pillows,

As that earlier comfort behind my mothers dress,
I sleep, as the cat lays across my still warm clothes.




John Thomas Tansey 8/21/02