Margaret Hasse Verse-Virtual 2017 July

July 2017

I grew up in Vermillion, South Dakota, and was educated at Stanford University (B.A., English) and the University of Minnesota (M.A., English). I started writing poetry when I was a child and never stopped. For the past thirty years, I’ve lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where I teach and consult with arts organizations on their plans and programs. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate in receiving some awards for my poetry, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. My fifth book of poetry, Between Us, was released in 2016. Visit my website at www.MargaretHasse.com

Not Letting Go

In the back of the attic closet
on a rack of old duds for Goodwill,
a dress still hangs, brief and bright,
pert, a ruby coronation,
a red hot damn of a dress.

A man at a swing dance whispered
You shine in your orbit
as we twirled and the skirt
fanned out to my thighs.
Later I leaned back on a hot car's hood
to accept a long and starry kiss.

When I hold the dress against my figure
in a mirror, its svelte shape
won't stretch to cover mine,
wide where I used to be slim.
Parts of me that lifted and were light
are now among fallen things.

I could just keep a swatch
of its red fabric to pin in a picture frame
with a bit of silk wedding gown
and a snippet of baby blue flannel.
but if my life is a cloth, I want it whole.

“Not Letting Go,” was among the winning poems in Garrison Keillor’s Common Good Books poetry contest, 2017, for “poems of experience.”
© 2017 Margaret Hasse

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