by Regina Dilgen
For old ladies
That’s what the creative writing professor told us
As we were dutifully
workshopping a draft
to find the right image
This one rejected, discarded
I glanced down, relieved that I was not wearing a pink top in class that day
And that it wasn’t my poem
We never questioned then
That the writer had to be in the mold of Hemingway
All bluster and noise
Living hard and free like Hunter S. Thompson
Strength and power the only currency
Muted tones and compassion signs of weakness
Pink was a color for old ladies
You wouldn’t want any of that in your poems
You wouldn’t want to be that
There was no value
in an old lady
I was a freshman
And could never have told him, not then,
Didn’t know how to think
That pink is the color
Of the inside of a shell
Of tender arousal
Of a favorite piece of hard candy
Of blossoms trumpeting
Of the favorite sweater in the closet of an old lady
Made by her own mother to last, in their favorite hue of fuchsia
Or to tell him
Back then
that who you call
An old lady
is not one
for you
to disdain
And I should know, now.
***
Regina Dilgen, Ph.D., served as Professor of English and Department Chair at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, Florida. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in, Chameleon Chimera: An Anthology of Florida Poets, Blueline, Earth’s Daughters, Quartler(ly), The Dewdrop, Persimmon Tree, Passager, and Apollo’s Lute. She was a featured poet at a Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches reading. She lives in Delray Beach, Florida, where she writes and paints.