A Dress For Reading Aloud

There’s a certain sort of dress that softly says, “I’m here to read poems,” without shouting about it. I don’t own one.

The last time I stood up at the community hall, I wore my “garden trousers” by accident. They’re deceptively comfortable but have a tendency to shed soil when I move, like a nervous woodland creature. I didn’t notice until a child pointed out a small caterpillar inching along my hem. She seemed far more interested in its journey than in anything I was reading.

Anyway, with another poetry evening coming up — the kind where the chairs creak and the biscuits go first — I thought perhaps I should find something a bit more “author at large” and a bit less “compost enthusiast.”

I popped into the dress shop where everything smells faintly of lavender and budget worry. Tried on a dress with sleeves that floated like hope. It was lovely. It also cost more than my electricity bill. I left without making eye contact with the mannequin. She looked smug.

Outside, just two doors down, I passed a tiny but sweet boutique where the lighting alone probably costs more than my groceries. And there it was — the dress in the window, bold as a brass band and twice as lovely. It was the kind of dress that practically sang, in a voice like melted chocolate, “Come now, lovely, let us float through a meadow and be admired.” I didn’t go in. I stood outside with a bag of potatoes and let the moment pass like a poem I hadn’t the courage to write. Still, some nights, when I’m steeping my tea, I think of that dress. I suspect it thinks of me too.

I told myself I didn’t really need a dress. That poems don’t care what you wear. That nobody notices. That I could always… iron something. Which is rich, really, as the iron and I have been on non-speaking terms since The Great Collar Incident of ’98. But I said it all with the confidence of a woman who once wore odd shoes to a wedding and called it intentional.

Then, last Saturday, the church hall jumble sale turned up with its usual chaotic grace. I found something in a heap between a VHS copy of Beaches and a cracked salad spinner. It’s deep green, white spots, with a stubborn zip and the faint smell of toast. It fits almost perfectly, if I don’t breathe too hard.

And when I wore it at the poetry evening, the chairs still creaked, and the biscuits still bolted — but someone said, “You looked radiant up there.”

I said, “It’s probably the static.”

• A Dress For Reading Aloud by Jay Rose Ana