posted by Michele
Cole dresses his mother
Like Elizabeth I in the film with Helen Mirren
undergoing a gynaecological examination. The
sleeve of her dress comes off, a petticoat is yanked up
a bodice divided. So does dresser Cole, aged
two, assemble and bring to his mother who
has dressed him for 735 days, buttoning
his sleep suits, the necks of his T-shirts
with unknowable slogans, tying the tapes of
his track pants (size 3, leg length 30cms)
her bra, her jersey, her knickers, her jeans
not in the royal order. He hands the jersey
first and indicates she should lower her head
then the knickers, tiny and lace-edged,
the bra, wire-stiffened. He drags
a teddy from a drawer, an angora
bolero, sequin-edged. And she, laughing
like an hysterical queen – she can conceive
the august Elizabethan doctors say
she is found fertile still and can produce an heir –
bra over her shoulder – Cole has brought two –
jeans hastily pulled over knickers, undoing
his precedence – hugs him to her, her delight
who returns delight to her every day
in the reciprocity of mutual dressing.
Elizabeth Smither
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