Missing since: May 15, 1970 from Chicago, Illinois
Age: 62 years old
Clothing/jewelry: A cocktail dress and jewelry
She tries the dress on carefully;
Smooths the fabric with careful fingers,
Twists and turns before the glass.
“I like it” she says
And lifts the room with a quiet, shy smile.
“I’ll take it, please. Just wrap it for me here.”
The dress is blue:
A scattering of cornflowers marks the neck and hem.
The colour of her eyes.
I tell her this and watch her smile again.
“My favourite flower” she says.
‘My husband buys them for our anniversary.”
I wrap the dress.
Hide matching gloves inside the heavy folds.
She lifts the package, smiles, and walks away.
© Anne McMaster 2016
So simple and engaging. You create the character in a sketch, and frame it with the timestamp implied on the dress by the missing notice.
Sweetly touching.
Paul – thank you for this feedback – you’ve really connected with this poem! The site that were were guided to during our hourly prompts really intrigued and saddened me in equal measure and when I found this lady’s name, I was totally enthralled that she had disappeared in a cocktail dress and jewellery: not what you would expect. I imagined her picking out the dress so carefully without an idea of what was going to happen and, somehow, I found myself writing it from the point of view of the man who had served her that day. Such tiny details help to make a person real.