Cultivation - Memoir (and)

Sally Lipton Derringer

Cultivation

for my sister

In the photographs in the old black album, we pose

like trees at the Botanical Garden. The hems of our lilac-strewn

dresses make perfect circles, anchored by the weight

of our hoop slips. We’re blossoming

ladies-in-the-making, learning the etiquette

of proper posture and clean white gloves. We stand up straight

as oaks, tummies in, and point, white-fingered like magnolias,

at asymmetrical wisterias, weeping willows, unsculpted birch.

We carry stiff straw pocketbooks laced with artificial

flowers but they’re empty; we’ve had to leave our Silly Putty eggs

and pink Bazooka gum at home. Our budding faces, bangs pruned

short, cheeks watered clean, are serious; we’re absorbing

all this information for the future, the way seedlings soak up

what they need to grow. We’ve years to go before seventh grade

biology, stamen and pistil, flowers’ sex. Each spring we return

more ladylike, quieter, more refined. At eight and ten, we’re ready for

the Japanese meditation garden. We’re allowed to trade tight Mary

Janes for paper slippers, acting as if we understand what we’re supposed

to do. Our father, just this once, hasn’t told us what’s expected; we have

to figure it out for ourselves and it feels strange, but good.

Miniature versions of what we’re on the verge of, we’re doomed

to be stunted like the dwarf peach: never to branch upward

and outward, just flower politely, pre-arranged, on cue; all

dressed up, and nowhere in the world to go.

• • •

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