"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.