I was taller than all the other girls in school and that uniform didn’t help: a navy jumper out of rough fabric, over a long-sleeved blue shirt. I had only one uniform, which got washed once a week. Fabric threadbare, I patched it and wore it again. Leaving the iron imprint on it by mistake didn’t earn me a spare. All the girls wore a hair band or a white ribbon in their hair, but it always slid off and didn’t flatter anyone. Some girls tied two ribbons on top, sometimes fashioned like carnations. We wore the pioneer red scarf with edges in the colors of the Romanian flag. We had the name of the school and a number sewn on the front of the jumper, or the jacket for the boys, so when we walked home if we did anything bad, anyone could call the school and turn us in. And yet today, when I open my closet, I find that half of my clothes are navy and blue, a dozen light blue tops in all variations. When I go shopping I resist the first picks—another blue shirt, a fifth pair of navy slacks. Even better, at work I wear navy blazers the way boys had to wear for their uniform. Now I wish that teachers had a uniform: I could own seven items of the same and be done, free to spend all my money on books. ///// Read more of Lucia Cherciu’s poems here on Lightwood. Scroll down and enter her name on our Search link. Her book of poetry, Immigrant Prodigal Daughter, is now published. Lucia Cherciu is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). Her work was nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and three times for Best of the Net and has appeared in numerous publications. She received her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with the dissertation titled “Luddicrous ‘Scribbling Women’: The Politics of Laughter and Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers.” Cherciu is a Professor of English at SUNY / Dutchess Community College and served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County, New York poet laureate. Her web page is http://luciacherciu.webs.com.
Lightwood 
I still have some of my Navy uniform, too, Lucia. Yours sounds soo much nicer.
LikeLike