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Posts Tagged ‘Dolly Parton’




for an hour we danced
in the tiny kitchen
and sang with Dolly,
our voices braided
like eager vines,
and for that hour
I smiled and swayed
and I felt such spaciousness—
like a lost girl in a fairy tale
who has walked through dark woods
and arrived in a glade
with sunlight streaming
and flowers and bird song,
and though she’s still lost,
for this moment she’s safe,
not only safe, but happy,
truly deeply happy,
and when she reenters
the cold, dark woods,
as she must,
a bit of the shine
has twined into her.
Even now, I feel it,
the radiance,
how it shimmies
just like we did
beside the old oak cupboards,
how it glitters in the dark,
how it moves.

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Tonight I read

that Dolly Parton

always wears

high heel shoes

in her kitchen.

“Don’t you?”

she asks.

I don’t.

I wear old brown

wool slippers.

With orthotics.

I try to imagine myself

strutting into the kitchen

before the kids

go to school,

making smoothies

and scrambled eggs

in my yoga pants,

my long gray sweatshirt,

and my four-inch

lucite stilettos.

Click, click, click

go the heels

as I teeter toward

the tea cups.

Click, click, click

as I strut

with paper towels

to the place

where the cat

has retched.

Oh Dolly,

as I slip into

these high-heeled thoughts

I thank you

for dressing up the day.

They two-step

through the morning chores,

while meanwhile

my slippered self

marvels at the fun,

but shrugs—

she’s just so darn grateful

for her arch support,

for the rubber soles

that ground her

as she sweeps

up the crumbs,

as she wipes

the counters clean.

Grateful that when

the high heeled thoughts

start to sing,

they invite her

to sing along.

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