by

Shoebox Poetry: Sunday Pose

pictures on sundays
wearing pure white
pearls, flowers, smiles

but not before

we wash in the family tub
first dad and then my ten brothers
then mother
then me
        cold
        dirt
        shame
        s i n
it absorbs deep into 
        my   soft skin
        my   thick blood
        my   frail bones
leaving me scabbed
broken apart
dirtier than before
but mother covers it all with white

smile, she says
but I’m thinking of willow trees
carving my name with a sharp knife
pomegranate juice running down my chin
screaming at the stars

straighten up, she says
but I’m thinking of foggy forests
walking barefoot through mossy earth
honey dripping from my fingertips
bathing in the moonlight

be sweet, she says
but I’m thinking of roaring waves
sunlight on freckled shoulders
seaweed stuck between toes
salt water taffy kisses

be quiet, she says
but I’m thinking of throwing things
messy hair and dirty fingernails
cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue
painting my own life

but not before

pictures on sundays
wearing pure white
pearls, flowers, smiles

Shoebox Poetry: Last week I rediscovered an old box of photos I inherited when my grandmother died in 2004. This poem is the first in a series of poems using those images as inspiration. Today’s photo is of my grandmother as a young woman. There is no date, but the sweeping handwriting on the back says “Kate, Gill St.” And yes, she told me her entire family bathed in the same water every Sunday before church. Can you even imagine?

112 thoughts on “Shoebox Poetry: Sunday Pose”

  5. Believe it or not I actually remember the tin bath tub that my parents kept hanging up in the outside wash-house! It was never used for us kids except when in my early teens it was converted to make a garden in the yard. Happy, innocent days 😊🙋‍♂️

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  6. Very powerful & vivid snapshot into the past ❤ Love the daydreaming fantasies 'sunlight on freckled shoulders / seaweed stuck between toes / salt water taffy kisses' contrasted with the inner rebellion against parent's prim behaviours. Beautifully written! 😀

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    • Thanks, Tom! My grandmother was raised in a very religious and super strict household. She rebelled in her youth, as evidenced by her photos, but she never told me any of her stories. It was fun to imagine her having freedom and her own adventures before life had a way of catching up with her.

      She didn’t marry until her very late 20s and then he died only a short five years later. She spent most of her life doing her own thing.

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  8. A brilliant poem and truly inspired. Yes, reused bathwater was considered common sense in days of more drudgery, frugality, less luxurious and taken for granted modern times. I lived a life here as the youngest child always last in. Brrrr!!! 💕✨

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    • Yes, with no indoor plumbing and having to heat the water on the stove and haul it back outside…I get why it was a weekly thing. My grandmother lived in a farm house in West Virginia. I wish I could have seen it. I’m sure you appreciate a nice, clean, hot bath more than most 🙂

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    • I’m so glad you enjoyed my poem. I know! It’s crazy to think of how long her mother would take heating pots of water and lugging them out for all the men to wash first, only to end up taking a cold dirty bath in the end. Thank goodness for indoor plumbing and woman’s rights (although we still have a ways to go and seems we are slip-slidding back these days).

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  10. oh wow Bridget. I love this and your imagery is palpable and masterful. Truly and amazing write.
    I loved all of the lines and truly can’t point out one better than the other.
    💞
    “carving my name with a sharp knife
    pomegranate juice running down my chin
    screaming at the stars”

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  12. Oh, so true. So true. The passion to look perfect for others and the terrible antagonism underneath. Narcissists are experts in doing that. They hate everybody, including those they profess that they love. Well, I should say especially those they profess that they love. They don’t care the trail of destruction they leave behind… Well, I wonder if she said they all swam in the same pool. Probably when she was old, she confused pools with bathtubs.

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    • My grandmother was brought up in the Baptist church and keeping up appearances, especially for women, was very important. Even in her 90s she always had her hair done, work crisp ironed suits and bright lipstick. I’m not sure it was a toxic family trait or more the way it was then. We are all bound by expectations in some shape or form and it’s only when we break free from these we see how constricting they were. She actually did bathe in the same tub outdoors as her entire family, not a pool. It’s the way it was back then, the youngest getting in last.

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      • Oh, no. The youngest must be facing … Oh, no. Traditions are weird stuff. My grandma, the big narcissist, had all kinds of weird rules, which was in place when she grew up in her fishing village.

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    • I’m happy my poem resonated with you. It’s so hard to live up to the expectations set by our parents and have the courage to make our own way. Did you have to wear the pink curlers to bed at night too? Hair needs to be perfect for church on Sundays.

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  17. I canNOT imagine! This was a wonderful exercise and such a beautiful, moving poem that caused me to feel so much! I love the idea of writing off old photographs of people we may or may not have known well.

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    • I’m glad my poem made you feel things! That’s music to my ears. Yes, I’m really excited about this project and looking forward to seeing what direction the photos lead me each week. Next week I’ve chosen a photo of an old boyfriend…

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  18. Oh, I love this, Bridgette. Your photo reminds me of a box full of photos from my grandmother and my Mum. They’re all in albums at the moment, and it’s breaking my heart to rip them out of the albums to share between my three sisters (one in Australia) and me. Having read your excellent poem, it’s compelled me to go and sort through them very soon. They’ve been up there in a box for nearly six years now. I don’t think either of my parents experienced sharing baths in a tin bath; if they did, they never mentioned it.

    Sometimes, it’s not till we lose family members that we suddenly think of all the unanswered questions we have (speaking for myself, that is.) I would have loved to have known more about my grandmother’s early life.

    As a child, I remember having to share a bath (indoors) with my three younger sisters. We thought nothing of it then, although we were about 10, 9 and 7. It must have been a squeeze.

    My favourite lines of all those you’ve written are …
    “pictures on Sundays
    wearing pure white
    pearls, flowers, smiles” …

    Photos can give an air of innocence, of being pristine and perfect without revealing family secrets and truths.

    Funnily enough, I’ve been trying to write a descriptive piece of fiction about a Victorian family using a photo I found on Pexels. I think your piece is extra special because it’s connected with real memories and your thoughts which you’ve written about so beautifully. Love to you, my friend. Hugs for you and your daughter, too. Xx 💖💞

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    • Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, Ellie! I’m so glad you have all those photos and I bet it will be hard to part with them. I’m lucky, in one way, I’m the only one in my family who wanted my grandmother’s things (unless it was something they could sell for money). That’s another story…

      I wish I had a lot more stories of my grandma and this box is filled with mystery. I’ll explore one next week about a guy named Eddie. So many questions!

      I’m glad you liked those lines. Yes, photos often are the image we want to project to the world and not reality. Social media has amplified that and some people spend their days cultivating a fake image. It’s not the truth. I’m all about real-“warts and all” as my mom says.

      I’m looking forward to reading your next piece! Thank you for the hugs. My daughter says thank you too. Back at ya ❤️

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  20. that photo looks so fresh, so now; like the poem: rinsed and clear on the surface, but all the wildness wanting to break out, the passion to ‘paint’ one’s own life; I look forward to more of these ‘shoebox’ poems 🙂

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  23. My mother died 40 years later. She spent most of her life doing her own thing. I feel my mother’s memories. Love this poem❤️!and truelly inspired.
    Truelly & right you write. I love & like all the lines truelly can’t point out one better than the other.
    “Pictures on Sundays wearing pour white pearls , flowers, smiles”…….. So amazing write you.
    It’s connected with real memories and your thoughts which you have written about beautifully. Love to my friend Hug for daughter.
    Thanks, Bridgette!

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  28. You look very similar to your grandmother. I always find those stories fascinating. I don’t know much about my paternal grandmother because she died years before I was born and my maternal grandmother didn’t meet that often. She (my maternal grandmother) grew up on a farm so I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened. She had many siblings and was much, much younger than them. 🙂

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  30. What a beautiful photo, Bridgette, and poem to pair with it. I love the idea of shoebox poetry also. Both of my parents have passed, but I recall my dad saying how they took baths every Saturday night. No, I can’t imagine. We really have no reason to complain about anything. Lovely! 💞

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  32. Bridgette I had to go re-read your “about” page. I remembered it as being kind of shy about your writing ability. That is just not true. This poem has so many poem-virtues. A beautiful engaging read, poignant while standing in the Light, intimate, no shyness here. You make glad readers of us.

    This is sort of a masterpiece story poem painted here. Writers likely never really know what they think of their own work as much as someone else they admire. So, me, I’m on this side of the picket fence – and unlike many, you make me happy to come visiting. Look forward to more from your shoebox (or anything).

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    • What a kind comment Amanda! I’m so glad you liked my poem. I’m working on another one based on an old photo for this Friday. I hope you like it too and I’m so glad you found your way to my blog. Welcome! ❤️

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