Blue Dress on a Hanger

 

 

 

It started with a picture of a girl

found in a book

not sure when

but you see her now:

plain as the sky

washed in common sense

Miss America for a day

a girl who writes songs

wears her hair

in waves and nutmeg

brims ripe with ingenuity

tolerates some degree of coincidence:

a mother of nature

with no children of her own:

teeth gritted

face powdered

her shine all delicate

and fragile.

 

It ends in blue fabric

casting a shadow-in-dance

against a closed door

as it wafts

on a hanger

in the lamplight of an evening almost passed.

 

 

Joey Brown’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals including Rhino, The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Dos Passos Review, Compass Rose, Pinyon, Clare, The Chaffin Journal, Quiddity, Front Range Review, storySouth, Freshwater, and The Florida Review. Her work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize three times. In 2010, Mongrel Empire press published a collection of her poems titled Oklahomaography.

Joey holds an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She is a writing professor and teaches writing workshops.