Whistler's Mother

If you put Whistler’s Mother in a pair
of jeans and muckboots,
and pull her gray hair back
into a pony tail she might look like
any ol’ gal at the farmer’s market.
Bonnets and black dresses didn’t do
any favors for young hearts in old bodies.
Who knows? Whistler’s Mother
may have longed
for a contra dance, to not be confined
to a wooden chair for eternity.
Her feet may have longed for a twirl around the room,
the white handkerchief in her lap
dabbing tears away,
between the brush strokes,
of some long abandoned dream.