'First Ladies,' A Poem By Eve Brouwer

First Ladies,   m. 1963—d. 1976

 By Eve Brouwer

(reprinted with permission)

We were the first ladies . . .
Kay, Diana, Sharon and I.

Ladies first—through doors, to be seated,
into aisles of theater seats. 

We were always ladies,
first, and foremost, and above all else.

We’d been dutiful daughters, and virgin brides,
and became good wives, and loving mothers. 

Yes, we were ladies first, and foremost, and above all else.

We were the first ladies

upon whom our husbands

bestowed their names,

the first ladies to whom they

plighted their troths.

A place of honor was given us.

We knew our place and kept to it.

We supported husbands
earning degrees

and, by degrees,
their masculinity,

husbands who came
—and went—

with impunity.

We stayed still, in ladylike passivity.

In still nights we stayed
—and waited—

loosed our chignons, our French twists
—and stopped. 

Frozen in an earlier time.

The world turned and skewed, and,

through curious eyes,

we viewed askance
political revolutions.

Through amazed eyes,

we read, titillated
by a sexual revolution.

With guilty consciences, we stood in line,

signed the children into pre-school.

Minute cracks in our polished veneer
let longings in,

let the Ms.’s hook their fingers toward us,

let the Ms.’s beguile us thus.
They kept their own names,
Wrote their own vows,
Took their own bows.

Looking back, are those our new “sisters”
marching on DC?

Is that us, sitting still, still sitting,
watching on TV?

Yes, and then . . . the husbands left.

Yes, and then . . . we fell
into the abyss.

Some to sink, some to swim,
most to flounder, betrayed

by our mothers’ voices,

our husbands’ vows,

our sisters’ visions,

our own ambitions.

Swept away, footloose, we lost our bearings,

doubted our instincts.

A toe
touched a rock here

A hand
reached for a branch there.

We loosened the weights dragging us down.

Then grabbed them back to our maternal breasts.

We emerged alive, to find

that women had put away

their feminine touches

—their pill-box hats, their white gloves, their recipe collections—

had relegated their children to others’ care,

were pursuing degrees, careers, orgasms galore.

Through it all, even as we
threw off the fancy hats,
drew on more appropriate gloves,
entered the no-holds-barred fray,

it never felt right.

Behind it all, under it all,

we were still

ladies who waited

for their men to return.

And waited, for a long time

after they'd finally gone for good. 

Yes, the first ladies in those husbands' lives

were merely the first in their series of wives.

Eve Brouwer
Photo by Donald G. Redman

Eve Brouwer lives and writes in Covington, Louisiana. An author and poet, her published works have been recognized by the New Orleans Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and by Louisiana Inklings. She is the 2012 St. Tammany Parish Literary Artist of the Year and she serves on the board of the Northshore Literary Society.











Copyright Eve Brouwer. All rights reserved.
Illustration by Donald G. Redman