Improv 1, Week 8

At Dusk
Natasha Trethewey

"It's as if she can't decide
whether to leap over the low hedge,
the neat rows of flowers, and bound
onto the porch, into the steady cirlce
of light, or stay where she is: luminous
possibility-all that would keep her
away from home-flitting before her" (lines 13-19).

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It’s as if she can’t decide whether to wear stockings
wrapped around her head or silk ascot with a pewter pin.
The stockings fur up with gray cat hair, so she decides

to go for the knee-length kimono, which really is the best
costume for the day. We have reached four days of warm,
she says, but the cards call for the start of anatomy to bloom

again. History be told, she knows little of independence,
even in July there weighs a bold sense of porch swings
never left or barely deserted. Today it’s a lime-colored blouse

that drapes the curves of her neck, pressing to the folds
of her ears. The tweet of crickets envelopes her childhood
home, which she stands in now, both old as the rust

that crawls over the brass doorknobs. Yesterday
was only dress rehearsal, costume changes with drawers
full of scarves, brooches, minks, all waiting for her,
the one to bring sitting into standing and silence to parade.