West Virginia on My Mind

Possibly it's due to the recent death of my father. Or maybe it's just a matter of my own aging, but I've been finding West Virginia coming into my poems lately. It was the place my father was from, the place my paternal grandparents lived and where my family often visited when my brother, sister, and I were small. 

My paternal grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Gordon. I was named after her. The first time I ever found myself starstruck was seeing her in her Moose Lodge finery the year she was crowned queen.
Actually, I may not have seen her at all. It was the photo I remembered. It lived in one of our family photo albums, and there was no other photo in there like it. Not our Easter pictures, not our "fancy" professional portraits—nothing could compare to what Mamaw looked like that day. To me she was impossibly glamorous, though I'm sure glamour wasn't in my vocabulary back then. 

After I wrote the poem, I went back to find the photograph. I couldn't believe how well I'd remembered Mamaw's appearance or the specific qualities of her outfit. The details of her had clearly been seared into my brain. I remembered the things, and only the things, that had struck my child's mind. 

Looking at it now though, I'm startled by the elements I'd completely forgotten: the black lacquer wall hangings my parents had brought back from Vietnam, the sturdy telephone that always sat on its little table, atop the skinniest phone book I'd ever seen to this day. The white aluminum blinds that covered all the windows in the entry room. No one else I knew had blinds like these. And I'm certain that Mamaw didn't know anyone else in 1969—or ever—who had a family like the one that became hers after my father returned from Vietnam. In that little town, Oak Hill, West Virginia, the simple military operation that grew into the Vietnam War came home to roost. And though we were very, very far from the battlefield, we were still in the midst of it all. 

LOOM

It was a big deal when Mamaw

was crowned Sweetheart Queen

of the Oak Hill West Virginia

Loyal Order of Moose

my sister and I sitting on our knees

on the living room carpet

wondering at the goings-on

behind her bedroom door

and when she emerged we oohed

and aahed at her shoulders bared

in the first strapless gown we had ever seen

the tight red bodice

the layers of taffeta

encircling her legs hiding her feet

its flare so wide

she couldn’t be hugged

her white arms gloved in whiter satin

up past the elbows

a bejeweled tiara tucked

in the stiff swirls of her hair

a Polaroid was taken

and we watched them go

her and our Papaw

in his fancy dark suit

off to a place I’d been to only once

fifty months before

the family’s five-year-old

Hula Hoop hotshot

shoop-shooping that plastic ring

all day on the summer lawn

thrilled by what my little body

could will the toy to do

moving it high to the top of my chest

arms stretched to the sky

or down my terry-covered thighs

a spinning whirlwind around my knees

then up the torso again

traveling over and over

giving Mamaw an idea

of what to do with me

clip a flower to my hair

fit me in a grass skirt

transform her foreign grandbaby

into something Hi-why-an

wreathed in an artificial lei

a woman’s borrowed bikini top

looped around my neck

finally Mamaw had found

a use for all that tawny skin

and though children were not permitted

at the monthly Moose Lodge dinners

they made an exception for me

the entertainment

there to charm the bleak mountaineers

bring a whirl of the exotic

to their coal dusty lives

she took me by the hand

past all the dining tables

to the front of the hall

where I stood barefoot

on the small wooden stage

the hoop lowered over me

the smiles as the music was cued

and the too-high grass skirt

got in the way

as did the too-loose top

and the hoop refused to behave

in front of the all-white onlookers

who shrugged their shoulders

who applauded politely

when I was led back through them

the beautiful flower

plucked from its shrub

wilting in the thicket of my hair.