A Pageantry of Hats

One day the bow legged man stop to look into the window of a women’s haberdashery, double-jointed manikins and boxes, a pageantry of shoes lined up like sentinels, and so many hats he thought he’d loose his balance, his bowed leg crumpling beneath him. There were women’s sunbonnets, boaters, hats with veils and taffeta frills, some crooned with fruit, apples and bananas, flowers twisted into silk hatbands, pillbox hats and church hats, hats worn once, then thrown away, cameo hats bejeweled with stones and gems, and hats that he couldn’t identify, but knew were hats just the same.