Need a 180

Withering

The bespectacled girl, a pitiable image of her mother

Loved the way those leopard print peas snapped

Between her fastidious fingers and drifted to the wicker basket

She squeezed between her thrift-store skirt.

Only four dollars at the local Goodwill where her silvery-eyed Nanu

Sorted the clothes in a rainbow of moth-eaten cotton.

Her Ma, a bewitching Southern doll,

With too-bright make-up selected from the cardboard bins

Up and down the extensive halls of the flea market

Said, "It don't flatter you, punkin."

So the girl decided to filch a smear of Ma's stale blush,

Which she had to scrub to get even a little color off of.

Rouge half-moon's of pigment glinted under her nails as she

Washed the peas and stared at the water below.

Her reflection in the sink, marred by the

Fingerlets of green and brown, and sometimes purple spotted peas,

Did not do justice to Ma's, so she undid her

Coarse, charcoal curls and let them cover her face in a tangle.

When Nanu came home she patted her granddaughters wild-bush hair,

And told her, "You're not as pretty as your Ma."

Together, they dropped peas into the translucent Mason jars lined

Upon the counter like soldiers ready to feed their family through the

Harsh realities of wintertime, so near.

She asked her grandmother, "Nanu, why aren't I beautiful?"

To which Nanu replied, "Your granddaddy and your daddy were ugly, too."

The girl felt the warmth of her brightened cheeks fading

Into a hopeless frown,

Withering.