On summer Sunday evenings
I would sit with my child's legs dangling
from my mother's dressing table stool
and paint again her face upon my own:
Burning red lipstick shaping a mouth
of bitterness and defiance;
Sweating greasy rouge of shame

But to really change my status
from Cinders to Princess,
I would delight to adorn
the brunette stubble of my head
with a white silk evening scarf,
creating instant flowing flaxen tresses
and actualising my fantasies of grandeur...

But it would be the scent
that would speak to me
of both freedom and agony;
little plastic jar
of heavily perfumed cream
called Topaz

It reminded me of what
I was there trying to forget:
the earlier weekly trip to the red brick
Victorian psychiatric hospital;
Being tossed about in the back of the Riley
on the way;
Arriving car sick with the heavy smell
of walnut-faschiad dashboard
and cheap perfume;
Then sickened more by the taint of institution,
crazy women
and the stench of biological decay
staining my father's clothes
that spoke of his closeness to them

And I was confused by his relationship to me

Red was the colour of pain and control -
and of the adult world of my own
I so wanted to enter;
To be myself and self-sufficient
Not connected at the wrist
to all these messy grown-ups

* * * *

Topaz wasn't the same on me,
couldn't magically transport me
to the Grown Zone
in the way that I hoped

On a body that had not yet learnt
to sweat or bleed
the rosy smell of Johnsons
still lingered...

I could not replicate the scents
of those courtship evenings
my older brothers so enjoyed,
practising their pre-nuptials
long into the night;
Breaking through
into adult worlds of their own

And I knew that they had
found their freedom
for the smell of afterbirth
is strong

* * * *

When the scratched vinyl went on
those summer Sunday teatimes:
Ray Charles' "Take these chains
from my heart
and set me free";
Engelbert Humperdinck's
"Last waltz with you,
two lonely people together",
and Ken Dodd's
"Tears for souvenirs" -
I would descend from my throne
and go into the garden

There I would stand
and systematically
pull the wings off butterflies:

Those Sweet Painted Ladies
coloured red

Who would never fly again

...Or had not yet learnt to