Thirteen
by Julie Kane

All summer she twirled
in pearls and satin gowns,
pale as a mushroom
in the attic.
Sometime her aunt or
her father would hint that
the field of Queen Anne’s lace
at the end of the road
was chock-full of children
her age. Her age
was suddenly uncertain as
the woman’s breath
rising and falling
in an oxygen tent
all summer long.
Nothing to do but wait.
In the stale heat
of the attic, in the rippled
full-length mirror,
she posed
in velvet, in chiffon,
in her mother’s useless clothes:
waiting for her breasts
to blossom and fill
the loose bodice of her grief.