Mary Sheepshanks
My Mother's Hat
Be warned, if you would pen a sonnet
in praise of homemade Easter bonnets
I know from sad experience that
faith can be shattered by a hat.
I always knew I’d loose my cool
should Mum come, hatted, to my school
and blame my spiritual defection
upon her millinery confections.
One day she did her dreadful best
with green baize from the silver chest
– a hirsute hat whose monstrous brim
was fringed with bobbled lampshade trim
and draped in her bee-keeping veil.
I offered God one heartfelt wail
and prayed he’d make her stay away…
…she wore the thing on Parents’ Day!
Page(s) 53
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