Marlene Everlasting

“She remains what she has been for many years - an absolutely strange delight, whose gift lies outside her achievement as an actress, is not tied to a specific time and does not depend on the taste of the moment, not even on common sense.”
~ Cecil Beaton


I bought my daughter a top hat
She wants to be Marlene
The black and white 8X10
She keeps on her closet door
Marlene smiling that half-a-smile
In a tux with tails, hand on her hip
Cigarette in her hand

I told them that you had seen her
And they became a chorus of sighs
A choir of envious moans
“Oh. My. God!”
“That is beyond incredible.”
“I was TOTALLY born too late.”

Another generation has come to adore her
The girls and the boys
Straight and gay
They listen to recordings of her sultry, smokey voice
They hang her picture on their walls
“She is so . . . everything,”
Says one savvy daughter

Reality was not kind
Like history, it is often cruel
And she died alone
Still . . .
The image of the beautiful, sultry woman
With the half closed eyes
The essence of something she was
Remains forever young
Possessed of a heady, classy glamour
Not to be found anywhere
Anymore
Portraying a smooth confidence of self
That a whole new generation
Would echo

Woman Eternal . . .
With a small, knowing,
Smokey
Smile


Edwina Peterson Cross
(For Vi)