Sundress

The young girl felt like a swing attached to tiny straps

that u-turned over her shoulders. She didn’t have a waist,

but she knew she had the makings of one, her hipbones

small omens. Grape was her favorite Fla-vor-ice, and

when she pressed the jagged plastic edge against her lip

it dripped across her chin and into the violets on her dress,

staining the fabric like a bruise. When she smiled

her teeth were a calendar of plums, incomprehensible.

Everyday, the young girl looked up into the pornography

of clouds and wished to be a new girl. She didn’t know

why the neighborhood boys leered at her, but she had a hunch

that it had to do with the future. She looked away from

the overture of eyes, practiced being the girl she would like

to be, dragged the translucent flowers and gauzy white cloth

with her, through the grass, in pursuit of crickets, her clavicle

a compass. Her hair was a tangle of insurrection; her hands

unfolded in front of her like they were each their own animal.

There was her and the dress that held her, her and the dress

that hid her. There was the wide world and this pretty

semi-transparent cotton, among other things, between her nerves

and the gnarly nest of growth. The hem divided her at the knees,

bobbed in and out as if sewing her to sunlight, the whole

yard fastened with lemon thread.

dawn lonsinger