A red dress and other poems - Liz Cowley

With a bittersweet mix of humour and pathos, and often with a dagger-sharp sting in the tail, a woman's voice speaks straight from the page about her life-changing moments: love found and lost, marriage and divorce, children and career conflicts, despair and disappointment.

At twenty, I could turn a head
Whenever walking down a street.
In fact, I turned a dozen heads.
It's true, I promise, not conceit.

At thirty, walking down the street
I turned a head, or two, or three.
And workmen often downed their tools
To take a closer look at me.

At forty, walking down the street
Some turned their heads, but turned away
And rarely looked me up and down,
And just continued on their way.

At fifty, walking down the street
They never saw me pass at all.
They simply walked and stared ahead
Expressions blank, just like a wall.

And now I'm sixty-five years old
And once again, they look at me.
The whole world looks me up and down...
My leg is plastered up, you see.

I broke it falling down the stairs,
A rather silly thing to do,
The unexpected bonus is
I'm absolutely back on view.

The whole street looks me up and down
From toe to top, and top to toe.
It's lovely to be seen again.
It's splendid to be back on show.