FREE VERSE Poem: audrey hepburn hangs up her hat, by Emily Williams

audrey hepburn hangs up her hat
and takes off her pearls
She shucks her gloves finger by finger as
she moves to unzip her dress
The fabric of the little black number
falls to the ground around her
and her curves are met with the
chill of an air-conditioned apartment
And she sighs, her skin alert with
tiny bumps of residual anticipation
as she grabs a Red Bull from the fridge

Breakfast has passed and Tiffany is gone
and her dreams have vanished before her
like the smoke at the end of her cigarette
A jolt of caffeine at least brings her mind
out of the chasm it had fallen in
The swamp of disappointment that she
lost her heels in, that sticky, mucky place
Those Diors will not pass through her doors
Her Chanel will not be channeled
She can’t give any more to Givenchy
She is just she

Not the muse, the icon, the aesthetic
she craved, that she had imagined herself
She is on the outside of that wild world
The room where it happens that she
tried to claw herself into with stiletto nails
Her fingers are now nubby, covered in paint and
grime and nothing as exquisite as stone

Let go of the dreams, darling, let go
of the notion that you need to be a
poster, an image reposted on Pinterest
the theme of a twenty-first birthday
The sunglasses are no longer needed
to block out the bright future ahead
Because you already have what you
thought you needed.

The stitches of your limbs, the fabric
of your body hair and the button
of your nose, the epaulettes of your
fingernails, the brushes of your lashes
are the height of fashion
It is within you, ms. hepburn, in every
breath you take, each wrinkle and
drape of curve against frame

You are not a snapshot, but rather,
a flame, the lit end, a runway walk
You are not black and white, darling,
you are color
So, live it and use it