What I Want. An ekphrastic poem by Dawn Promislow

dawn promislow

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is dawn-promislow-pic.jpg

"Mobile garden dress" by Nicole Dextras, as seen in installation at Todmorden Mills, Toronto, July 2014.

 What I want
  
 What i want to know is, yellow lady, light midsummer light
 yes you, yellow-skirt
 dandelion, lionness
 potted pothead 
 on Pottery Road
 potting pots
  
 potting about lady
 skirting there
  
 yes, you
  
 mellow yellow-dappled hoop
 under pleated wear
  
 bodice bodied
 basket-boned, pot-bellied pot
  
 how many children under there
 madame, my dame?
  
 i want to know how many children
 under skirts
 under wear
  
 wasp-waisted yet
 earthen-ware mother
  
 potted mum
 yellow mums
 mum's nasturtiums, you say?
  
 i jus'
 want to know wish to know
  
 bee-crowned
 begowned
 (earth-skirt)
  
 ravish 
 you

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Dawn Promislow is the author of Jewels and Other Stories (Mawenzi House, 2010), which was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2011, and named one of the 8 best fiction debuts of 2011 by The Globe and Mail. She has a novel forthcoming in 2022. She lives in Toronto.

Published by darcie friesen hossack

Darcie Friesen Hossack is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers. Her short story collection, Mennonites Don’t Dance, was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Award, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Evergreen Award for Adult Fiction. Citing irreverence, the book was banned by the LaCrete Public Library in Northern Alberta. Having mentored with Giller finalists Sandra Birdsell (The Russlander) and Gail Anderson Dargatz (Spawning Grounds, The Cure for Death by Lightening), Darcie's first novel, Stillwater, will be released in the spring of 2023. Darcie is also a four time judge of the Whistler Independent Book Awards, and a career food writer. She lives in Northern Alberta, Canada, with her husband, international award-winning chef, Dean Hossack.

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