Rubber Glove Wedding Dress, by Victoria Gatehouse

A Mixture of Frailties, by Susie MacMurray (UK). 2004. Click image for artist website.

 
Rubber Glove Wedding Dress
 
Tier upon tier, this froth
of inside-out fingers, pinned
to a dressmaker’s dummy.
 
It must have taken weeks -
fingers deft inside fingers,
latex nipped and stretched
like balloons before the blowing
 
which makes you think of birthdays,
the prickle of magazine-pattern dresses
your mother stayed up to sew,
 
the terrycloth apron she wore
to wash up the best plates
and afterwards, Marigolds over taps,
her wedding ring, with its dusting of talc,
on the draining board.
 
The day you scrubbed up in white,
she had her first manicure, 
Rose-Dawn-tipped fingers fussing,
pulling hooks and eyes tight.
 
Today, you can almost hear
her gallery whisper
berating this modern stuff –
 
this foamy pooling, this train
of gloves, empty-handed
as the pair you found yesterday
in the pockets of her coat. 
​
Victoria Gatehouse

Victoria Gatehouse is a Yorkshire-based poets whose work has featured in numerous magazines and anthologies. She originally trained as a scientist before working on her MA in Poetry from MMU. Victoria is particularly obsessed by the garment sculptures and installations of Suzie MacMurry who’s work she first encountered during a poetry course at Manchester Art Gallery. She has a pamphlet forthcoming with Valley Press and does voluntary work as a Library Ambassador for Calderdale.