Yo ande in GrayTippet

Yo ande in GrayTippet (after John S oan) Emily Dillie

Yolande, you don’t smile in the Mona Lisa way. Hands smugly warm in your silky gray muff and are you laughing at me? Your half-upturned lips match your proper auburn coat, black eyes reflect the blackness of your velvet bonnet, hiding (mostly) a mass of thickly brown suggestive curls fastened tightly beneath your stubborn chin. Cranberries stain your ivory cheeks— Are you overheated? Chilled? Embarrassed? Those smirking almond eyes meet my pale blue, looking me over, a millennial girl sweating from a too hot September day. But you come from New York in November, brisk and autumn, breathing all the winds and smells that Florida denies. What secrets are you smuggling? Tell me, tell this too quiet room, whisper it to me because I need your laugh. Where did you get that gray scarf? Did you know when you put that tippet on, terribly soft, that your simple fashion statement would outlive the artist sketching you? Did you stress over what to wear that day, did you know it would become your identity? What brought you to this pose? Promises of money or fame or love or vanity? Tell me, what makes you smile that way, Yolande? Poetry 51