Birthday Dress Running down narrow aisles of the
cramped Mexican dress shop, white shoe on one foot, black shoe on the other,
two green purses, one in each hand, Ultra lifts her head. It cannot be
recaptured––those bellies tight as city boys watching every syllable out of her
mouth in peaceful ashram polka dot tent of endless pubescent lust. She shakes
the entire forest of dresses. This one she picks like plum blossoms––it glows
against the crumbling plaster walls like Aretha Franklin waking on a fabulous
couch. At seven, she went to Koran school. Her family was too poor to pay for
public education. No patched robe, loosely draped, forgotten language––after
many lifetimes, the wind will twist it into gorge flower soup. Ultra becomes
dizzy. Flames surge inside her. She disappears into the straps of a dress, the
never-ending universe of rags. The dressmaker sews without any needles. [Published
in The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter:
Expanded Edition. ©
2016 by Jim Cohn.] |
APPEARS IN The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter: Expanded Edition |