I walk in my mother's clothes on the street,.feel the cool sweat wider my arms soak her blouse.timidly: shy, damp flowers of my sweat on her blouse..I let the white dust with its years of spit and sweet.wrapper, its agonising lifelessness, pass over me.in my mother's clothes, her rust and bright blue.and burnt orange, my mother's colours on my skin.in the dust, as if they belonged to me. I cheat people:.men; girls in high heels who pretend not to look.and fidget and sulk, girls lovely and empty with want.who I destroy with my Look of Elsewhere..It's so easy to break girls, spoil their carefully planned.afternoons, their elaborate ploys to sweeten the air,.tantalise. Their eyes are bright with their love.for themselves, while I walk on the street.in my mother's clothes, laughing inside, relieved.of the burden of being what one wears, since in my.mother's clothes I am neither myself nor my mother..In her inky silks, her cool green gardens of chiffon.that once filled me with thirst, I dream of elusiveness.(which is actually the dream of all girls in high heels.On the street, who I scorn!) Is it only one woman we all.want to be? The woman who opens her eyes and looks.at the mirror into the eyes of a child. The child who drifts.like a shadow through long summer afternoons when.everyone sleeps, the spindly creature of six who slips.onto her fingers her mother's gold rings, pulls on.an old cardigan that smells of sunlight and milk,.and conducts herself, drowsy with love, through rooms.with their curtains drawn against the honeyed light of June..Does she always begin like this–seeking love by trying.to become the person whose love she seeks? Rolling up.the sleeves of her mother's cardigan and sitting with legs.dangling from high chair, her frail little shoulders stiff.with pride, her sisters jealous. Her mother slowly waking.to the calm evening light, laughing at the serious girl-clown.who is opening her eyes to look at the mirror into the eyes.of a woman, when all that there is of that unfathomable.grace she has taken with her and you are suddenly cold.in her cardigan.
