Blue Dress on a Hanger, Second Take

 

 

 

Every so often, and you’re never sure why,

that hitch in the light that comes with the

passing of afternoon into evening

stirs something up. It’s a memory,

a picture of a girl as you

found her on a catalog page,

or was it in some book.

 

You’ve always seen her

plain as the sky

scrubbed in common sense. She

smiled like Miss-America-for-a-Day,

a girl who wrote songs,

wore her hair in waves and spice,

brimmed ripe with ingenuity.

Oh, you see her, even now.

 

Sometimes, you imagine you are her,

a regular mother of nature

with no children of your own.

Powder your face, grit your teeth,

and you shine just delicate and

fragile enough.

 

Between your thumb and forefinger

lies all the difference allowable

in the kind of vulnerable you should look

and the kind of vulnerable you should be.

 

But this comes to you only every so often,

only those times when

blue fabric casts a shadow, as if in dance,

against a closed door.

You move through your house

turning on lamps,

staving off the passing of evening.

 

 

 

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.