Dorothy Donnellan, 1930–2006

I.

Bermuda sunning in golden-green maillot,
she slips straps artfully off white
shoulders, inviting us to linger on
the beauty of a molded clavicle.

Dorothy Donnellan—a starlet’s name—
the new “Mrs.” attached like a charm
to the woman slowly burning pink
in the direct, unfiltered honeymoon sun.

After dusk: a dinner dress, something
chiffon from the side-zippered, full-skirted
fifties; wedding pearls, and a quick brush
through a cap of gamine curls. Soon

enough will come tented gingham and seven
children, as annual as begonias.
She’ll still sunbathe when she can, on webbed
backyard chaise, amid the thronging shouts.

Five decades hence, those children will attend her.
Daughters will compose her in beige and pearls.
She’ll be lovely. She’ll be gone. But
now? Bermuda sunning in golden green,

in island shimmer, her manicured morning waits.
Seabirds cry, her bracelet clinks, ice melts.
Held closely in his frame, she closes eyes—
Beauty, imagining its own demise.

II.

See you standing there, careful not to
cast a shadow, aligning the Brownie.
You are deliberate in all things,
this, too, as you float me in your glass square,
brand new aquarium fish. Oh, I am
yours, we have sealed it, wedding ring and bracelet
encircling me. And now you document our idyll,
you who are incapable of leisure, can only pace,
plan, find two-day-old news of home
to study like the facts of a new case.
I’ll pretend I don’t know what
you’re doing there, fiddling to move the strap
out of the lens-eye, framing me
on the diagonal. I can vacation,
can vacate, eyes closed
as if I’ll never need to be anywhere else again.
Don’t think I don’t know where we’re headed: the draperies, the dishes,
the meals. Take the picture. Who knows when my hair
will be giving off sparks like these again? Somewhere,
sometime, we’ll fish the photo out of a box
and I’ll laugh and say, Oh, that?
What would you call
the green of this swimsuit?
The salesgirl said pea green but that only showed
what she knew. It’s the sky before electricity.
Olives in a martini.
Acid green.
Take the picture. I know what’s coming.
I want the proof.

Suzanne Matson is a professor of English at Boston College. Her latest book is The Tree-Sitter, a novel (W.W. Norton, 2006).