Queen for a Day
You have to have seen the show.
It aired a long time ago.
Three housewives
(back when we called women that)
lined up, breathless.
These Queenly figures
came from scrubbing floors,
not aerobics class.
The winner had the saddest story.
Then the announcement,
the crown,
the ermine-trimmed robe, velvet.
Red, I suppose.
The promenade.
The applause.
Better than the Miss America pageant,
which came later.
Mom coughs.
I snap to.
Let me get you a glass of water.
“Oh, you shouldn’t do that. I’ll get my own.”
(She thinks she can still walk.)
But, you are the Queen, I say, and mean it.
“Queen of what?”
This household, your domain.
She rises from her upholstered throne.
Got your balance?
Stand tall, like the Queen you are.
If she’s the Queen,
that makes me a princess.
But, in real time, I am a crone,
excavating for the tunnel
to become Queen of Myself.
This is it.
