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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.

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