Two Silver Ribbons
R. Angela O’Brien
I was driving for petrol when I saw her
walking by the side of the road past an
open green patch where the stormwater
gathers in a tiny lake. She was slender
as a willow wand in a mid-shin black skirt
made from some lightweight fabric – a
cheesecloth, I think – and, wrapped
near its hem, two broad silver ribbons.
She stepped with a swing , the cloth
floated and twinkled, flipped by her
sandals. It was the flickering silver as
the skirt fluttered I’d noticed. Her hair
hung loose and long, down to her waist,
a maiden’s glory, streaked with grey.
She would have been eighty, if a day. I
could see in her the girl she once was.
Fresh and free, lovely and lissome. I had
a skirt like that in my own girlhood –
blue as lapis lazuli, with a pink paisley
motif. No ribbons, though, and that
brought a pang. Now, dressed in track
pants and runners and a sloppy grey
shirt, no one would see the girl in me.
Sweet Jesus, I thought, what have I lost?
What gained, and at such a cost? Then
she dropped into rear-view and I turned
away from the past to the station and the
bustling day.
R. Angela O’Brien is a Tasmanian poet and writer of speculative and literary fiction. She has a PhD in unconscious learning and degrees in psychology, fine art, and mathematics. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in Epiphany, Abyss and Apex; ACEIII, an anthology of short fiction from Australian emerging writers; and the International Journal of the Humanities.