I’ve spread out on a chair your mazy skirt,
the crazyquilt your wardrobe didn’t need,
I thought, when tempted in the store to blurt
out No if asked. I note how patterns bleed
into each other once again, shark’s teeth
against carnelians, purple bull’s eyes pressed
to harlequin print. Bronze mosaics seethe,
crop circles flow, an acid trip full-dressed.
You smiled at swirl of compliments you got,
and I smiled too, as if I’d seen at first
the genius of design in every spot
and arc and stripe and diamond-shaped green burst,
had grasped right off cloth’s impulse to rejoice
irreverently, and told you, “perfect choice.”
Dan Campion has published previously inInnisfree Poetry Journaland inLight, Poetry, Rolling Stone, and many other places. He recently coedited Paul Carroll’s God & Other Poems.
