Stockings

My sister says, when we were young,

a poor woman sometimes came to the door,

and asked to borrow our mother’s stockings—

nylon stockings— to go to town.

That was the respectable way to go,

and the neighbor, who was about 25,

didn’t have a pair, but our mother did.

We don’t know whether she danced in them,

or anything else, like off and on,

but since she came to the door more than once,

it seems our mother complied.

Now, many years later, I’m obliged to report:

Mum was some kind of communist.