Joan Crawford Is Mad at the Dirt

I don't remember writing this, but it is dated July 30th, 2011, so I guess I wrote it a little over a month ago. And I kinda like it, actually, so here it is:

JOAN CRAWFORD IS MAD AT THE DIRT

When I put the laundry away 
I think always
–because of that magical way
that things have of becoming other things—
of Faye Dunaway
Shrieking at that tiny blonde child,
rather a good little actress, I always thought,
beating her mindlessly in her Kabuki makeup

And we become other things, too.

Changing, always, if we're lucky,
into something else and 
something else again until
the person I was is hard
to see from the perspective of
the person I am

Until the me that I was is as forgotten to me
as the tail I had all those decades ago
beneath my mother's not-yet-round belly 
when I was no bigger than my father's thumb

And wire hangers,
even if they didn't also mean, "Helga
I'm not mad at you I'm mad at the dirt"
have had life upon life before finding 
their ways to my closet

Worn lots of shirts, tried on many an outfit

Before slipping into this light blue polo
that I, too, will wear
until I change again