Child's Play (circa 1964)

Cut from pattern catalogues,
Simplicity or McCall's
(Vogue people too thin, too elegant
for our purposes),
families of smiling faces 
appropriately dressed.
Moms and daughters in matching
ensembles, perhaps, dads and sons
looking dapper, but fun.
Paper doll afternoons,
hours of conversation and pretend,
imaginations whirring like
the sound of our bicycle wheels later
as we raced, pinto horse against
palomino on the western plain.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2012