POETRY

Dreamscape Dressed in My Younger Self

By Asa Drake     VOLUME 54.1

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First, you have a dress of gold, but
you can’t wear it. The gold dress cannot
be washed or dry-cleaned. Hell, the tag
says no spot cleaning. So you have a dress
of gold, just in case. Then a field of red sorrel
in rows like someone loves it. Then a pine
forest with a floor of dogwood. Then the Perseids
behind sheet lightning. Next-year fruit
from your own cuttings. Slice me fruit from
the year I have yet to grow. I couldn’t slice
a pomegranate with less than six cuts.
Once you learn, there’s only one way to prepare
the pip-star in each soft pear. I have seen illustrations,
and I have been scolded by so many women
for making indefensible halves at their pie table. Now,
remember that dress we’re saving. You try it on.

 


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ASA DRAKE is a Filipina American writer and public services librarian in Central Florida. She has received fellowships from Tin House and Idyllwild Arts and is a 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest winner. Her most recent poems are published in Adroit, Copper Nickel, and the Paris Review Daily.


VOLUME 54.1