Portrait of Mollie in Three Lipsticks [After Howard Hodgkin]

Portrait of Mollie in three lipsticks     

Hollywood Red

Brush loaded, I hesitate; the paint, 
a smoky bar-lit Cherry-B with just 
a hint of Marilyn’s lips is perfect,
but it’s hard to shape those years before she
made memories of me, or I of her,
then in she dances singing, Que Sera, 
Sera, to help me draw a scarlet arc
for those nights at the movies writing her
own screenplay, where a girl escapes a mom
who can’t love her by marrying a slight,
floppy-haired man with beautiful teeth and
pale blue eyes; my Dad, but her Sinatra,
who would sing with her, Que Sera, Sera…

Party Pink

Daubs now, for births, strawberry blancmanges,
and me, perched on a stool in her bedroom
with legs swinging to her singing, Downtown
while she rustles into a new rose dress,
watching her dribble onto a brown block
to make the mud she’ll swirl with fairy brush
onto eyebrows and lashes, all the time 
waiting for her to whirl round, smile and say, 
Pucker-up, then paint my lips too, so that
together we can dance our way, Downtown…

Everlasting Coral

Applied too heavily, these final strokes
are smudged and fissured; some hold no colour…
Put lipstick on, Mom, then you won’t feel sad, 
I say, needing her painted smiles and days
like the one she buys an orange settee   
for a room of Wedgwood blue, and schoolfriends
whose homes are furnished with widowed grannies
and antimacassars, come round to stare;
but not those tequila days that flow to
blood-shot days when she understands that a
blue-eyed man and orange settee are not
enough, and listening to the wireless
she sings, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover… 

An earlier version of this poem was performed at ARTWRITE Portraits project.   https://www.artwrite.net/write…