SUMMER DRESS

NEW SUMMER DRESS

Cutting out material
on the kitchen table,
dress pattern laid out
in afternoon light,

Karen follows the scissors
into a field of cotton flowers.
I come in from the garden
through French doors

passing through one living
room to another. Later, my
feet on couch, pocketed
leather gloves soiling

furniture, watching soccer,
Karen enters the room
wearing her dress, hem
cut two lengths, bare skin

of her legs before me,
summer light coming through
cotton, gift of four decades,
with her question about fit.

Jim Bodeen
Summer Solstice, 2010