A badge of Southern womanhood,
feminine sign that you never gave up;
in a long life you never left the house without lipstick.

I loved the sleek tubes of color on your dressing table
before I was old enough to wear it--
Kiss Me Coral, Fire & Ice, Cherries in the Snow.
Watching you put it on, I marveled at your quick precision.

A painted mouth was adulthood, flirting, freedom
to experiment with the face you showed the world. 
You taught me to always carry lipstick in my purse
and how important it is even if you
don't have time for any other enhancement.

As your body failed and you gave up
so much that you loved,
every day you got up,
no matter how much of a struggle it was,
dressed in something lovely, put on perfume
and did your face.

At hospice two days before you died,
you opened your eyes from a doze
and said clearly to me and my sister, white-haired ourselves,
“You girls need to put some lipstick on.”
The last thing you asked me to do
was to brush your abundant hair.

At the hotel that night my sister grumbled,
“I hope when I'm 92 I'm not vain, and don't care about
having my hair combed or someone putting lipstick on me.”

I said, “I hope I do.”

From Be There or Be Square.(Moon Pie Press, 2018).
Used here with permission.