A Hat

Being old may mean that I don’t have time now

For withholding judgment till I have more facts.

It’s now or never to fill in the gaps with the work

Of imagining, to resist my first reaction

When I get to the bus stop on finding a tall,

Stout, middle-aged woman wearing a huge

Straw hat with a fillet of cloth daisies

Draped round the brim. Instead of regarding the hat

As a pathetic attempt at a striking style,

I might ask myself if a hat like this one

Was a fad for a while among the girls

At her town’s one school. If it was,

Then wearing one now may not be a fashion statement

So much as a gesture of solidarity with an era

Long gone, or with a particular friend

Who dreamed up the original just to be outlandish,

To thumb her nose at village blandness,

Village proprieties. When a girl, this woman

May have lacked the courage to follow

Her friend’s example, but now she has it.

Why should she care that the stiff-necked old man

Who’s just arrived at the bus stop

Gives her what seems a glance of pinched dismissal

And doesn’t look back again to nod a greeting?

Let him think what he wants to think

While she’s true to her deepest wish:

The wish that her friend could see her now.