The Way it Was Was Like This
After “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

-for Shirley

The way it was was like this:
it was 1950 and you were living in New York City
and sharing a room with your mother. Sure,
the address was good.
But you had to get out of there.
It wasn’t until the starched sailor appeared at your doorstep
that you began to go out. You dressed up.
You went to places like the Stork Club and drank Coke
out of a straw.
You curled your hair and ironed your taffeta.
You wore high heels and silk stockings.
He liked the way the bodice clung.
You go out and the streets of New York are filled with soldiers
back from the war, back from college on the G.I. Bill,
their faces a little bit worn, too old for college students.
Every night when your guy was back on leave, you went out.
You never tired of this. Your high heels clicked on the sidewalk
in a reassuring way.
When you got home, your mother was asleep.
You said goodbye to your sailor and climbed the stairs at 381 Park.
Your neighbor Sol Lustbader,
back from the war in Germany,
left the door opened a crack
and when you passed by, it clicked shut.
He knew you were home. He watched out for you.

—Dede Cummings

Dede Cummings is a writer, award-winning book designer, publisher, and commentator for Vermont Public Radio. Her poetry has been published in Mademoiselle, The Lake, InQuire, Vending Machine Press, Birchsong, Connotation Press, Mom Egg Review, Figroot Press, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Green Mountains Review, Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry, and Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection. Her first poetry collection entitled To Look Out From was the winner of the 2016 Homebound Publications Poetry Prize and was published in the spring of 2017. Her second poetry collection, The Meeting Place, was published in spring 2020 by Salmon Poetry. Dede lives in Vermont on a dirt road, in a solar-powered house her husband Steve Carmichael built, where she designs books and runs Green Writers Press.