Hello and welcome to another installment of Pick-a-Poem, the weekly post where we feature a poem by a poet you may not have heard of before. Hopefully this adds some much-needed poetry to your day, and perhaps you’ll find a new author to follow. As always, the featured poem comes from Poetry Daily. This week we feature What the Girl Wore by Kathleen Driskell.
According to her bio on Poetry Daily, Kathleen Driskell has written two books of poetry, the most recent being Seed Across Snow (Red Hen, 2009). This book was listed as a national bestseller by the Poetry Foundation. Her work has also appeared in Rattle, River Styx, and Pembroke Magazine. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.
What the Girl Wore by Kathleen Driskell
At the store, on the hanger, the blue dress must have fallen
like water to a froth of frilled hem, its bodice as smocked
as a christening gown. A season out of date, her mother chose it
from our local department store chiefly for the high collar,
but I knew it was a dress Lisa wouldn’t have been caught
dead in. Just hidden under the neckband of lace, the circle
of her purple necklace, each dark bead a fingertip of efficient
bruise that we already knew about anyway, and simply went on
imagining, as we, her classmates, filed past the white coffin.
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