CURLICUES ON A RED DRESS

	By Helene Pilibosian


	I had a red dress,
	not fire-engine red
	but red-red enough to curl
	the curlicues upon the material
	into an Oriental design
	like the musk
	of the semi-tropics
	distilled into a perfume.

	Scent, scent.
	I would have the scent
	of that mood,
	of white monkeys there
	jumping from tree to tree
	with no one to shout at them.
	What impunity.  What imps.

	What Oriental
	and impalpable imps
	to stir the mood
	of musk, of the curlicues
	of that red dress,
	a loner in my wardrobe
	of Western stock.

	It belonged
	to loud crowd sounds,
	to Ahmed take this box,
	to a language that was sandy and orange,
	to the sighs of the drought of a hot winter.

	It was a pattern
	of the material,
	and what an impalpable
	pattern to drink the water there
	with its unique microorganisms.

	Now I more often
	wear jeans of the spirit,
	more palpable anyway.


--
History's Twists: The Armenians, a new book of poems by Helene
Pilibosian includes this poem.  She has also published Carvings from
an Heirloom: Oral History Poems, the award-winning At Quarter Past
Reality: New and Selected Poems as well as co-written and edited They
Called Me Mustafa, her father's story.  She is the owner of Ohan Press
at http://home.comcast.net/~hsarkiss. Her e-mail is [email protected].