Bonnet by Susan Tekulve (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

Bonnet
by Susan Tekulve

The cosmetologist finds me
in the shampoo aisle, my hair
age-parched, slipping from clips
as if awakened by hurricane winds.
Her hair tousled by breezes,
she leads me to a rack of silk
bonnets, teaches me how
to wrap one around my crown.
She assures me the silken weave’s
worth more than oxygen. If worn
in sleep, it will safeguard my hair’s
youthful sheen, preserve my life’s
savings from beauty-product bankruptcy.

But I see myself old, dwindling
beside a winter window,
my gray hair rolled into the bonnet, my hips
traced by matching silk nightgown, cold
moonlight trembling a mattress sagging
with absence. Will the bonnet hold
the past when my mind no longer knows morning
from evening? Will it restore memories fading
like melted snow in early Ohio
spring after a winter’s sleep
through a bout of double pneumonia?
My fever broken, my mother opened
the bedroom window. The sound
of cows lowing beyond windbreak trees,
the tang of earth absorbing final snow
cushioned the air around my head
as my mother finger combed
sleep and sickness from my hair.

That’s how I learned touch
was worth as much as beauty,
and the skin is no more separate
from the mind than a lake’s surface
from its depths. That’s why, years later,
when I found my mother trembling
before her vanity mirror, unrecognizable
to herself, I knew how to weave my fingers
and warm air through her hair
my hands unfurling around her head
like a silken bonnet.

PAINTING: Self-portrait wearing a scarf by Zinaida Serebriakova (1911).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My mom was a terrifically organized and communicative woman, a professional secretary, the person who made sure I had my own library card by the time I was six.  She equated beauty with order and literacy, and she instilled these values in me. She wasn’t a hugger; she showed her affection mostly through talk and through keeping me organized, so the only time I knew her to be tender was when I was sick. In her final years, she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.  Late in her illness, as she lost her ability to use words, I had to learn a different way to communicate and care for her, and that language was touch. ¶ The beginning image of the poem came to me after my mom died, when a cosmetologist at our local beauty retailer tried to sell me a bonnet. The cosmetologist tried hard to sell me on buying that bonnet, promising how it would bring back my youth, among other things women lose as they age. The generated images and revelation of the poem came to me as I contemplated buying and wearing a bonnet.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: My mother actually captioned the photo of herself, “Information Office, 7-29-60.” As far as I know, she was working her first job out of high school, as a typist for AT&T in Cincinnati, Ohio. Honestly, I feel this caption remains fitting because it, along with the photo, pretty much sums up who she was.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Susan Tekulve’s poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in journals such as The Comstock Review, Italian Americana, Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, The Louisville Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, and Shenandoah. Her newest book is Second Shift: Essays (Del Sol Press). She is the author of In the Garden of Stone (Hub City Press), winner of the South Carolina Novel Prize and a Gold IPPY Award. She has also published two short story collections, Savage Pilgrims (Serving House Books) and My Mother’s War Stories (Winnow Press). Her photo essay, “White Blossoms,” appeared in Issue 12 of the KYSO Flash Anthology, and her web chapbook, Wash Day, appears in the Web Del Sol International Chapbook Series. She has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Visit her at susantekulve.com.