dresses

dresses in the closet

I don’t know why I counted them 

seven survivors 

worthy  desirable

at least 

in so much

as can be revealed in public places

in a 

not denied entry 

kind of way.

: that would pass 

though.

given enough time,

even the carefully edited collection loses its relevance

you are the compendium of all of our hopes and dreams

and also the what we have to put before we go outside. along with our faces and expectations

I taste the cloth between my fingers 

and categorize each by its texture

a memory imprinted on my fingertips

signaling for recall 

to unfurl and fill in the rest. 

like a fern frond

slowly

That one was bought in a shop on a corner of a street in Barcelona. 

And that one I wore to lunch of tapas in Oxford.

Never mind that I have never been to either place. I could have,

in that dress.

It was a good time.