Poem: Doris Day

Doris and Rock in 'Pillow Talk' 1959    [Image:CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

NOTE: Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff April 3, 1922)  was an American actress, singer,

 and animal welfare activist. She died on May 13, 2019.

Doris Day


Your movies always ended with marriage,
promising life lived happily ever after.
Rock Hudson was always your groom,
the handsome man who chased you
through numerous misunderstandings
until you agreed to be his forever.
In The Rivoli or The Fabian Theater,

we watched you, longed
with all our sixteen-year-old hearts
for your life, the luxurious white
peignoir, the roses on the breakfast tray,
the absence of any real tragedy,
a world without dead children

or atrophied love, your life lived
on the surface where everything
you ever wanted was finally yours.
We followed you adoringly down
that red-carpeted aisle, the white
wedding gown, the tiered wedding cake,

the limousine, the handsome groom,
and were shocked, then, to find
it was only a dream after all,
a celluloid fantasy we wanted to live out.
We tried for years not to know
that love often led to grief and sorrow,

that a house can be empty even
when it is full of people, that loss
is a burden we must carry alone.

Oh perky Doris, even you must have suspected
that what you were selling was counterfeit.
Where are you now, Doris Day?

Were you as fooled as we were
by those Technicolor moments,
some part of you wanting to believe
that your life, too, could be easy
and smooth, all scented cream
and satin, and that like Sleeping Beauty

you needed a man to wake you.
Are you longing now for sleep
into which you can escape
the monotony of marriage
lived in black and white?

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, from Italian Women in Black Dresses

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's most recent books are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow and the poetry collection, What Blooms in Winter. Her collection of poems paired with some of her paintings is The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets. Her new artist website is at MariaMazziottiGillan.com. Maria's poetry website is MariaGillan.com.

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