Mortified

By Rachel Jennings

At the thrift store
two weeks ago, I bought
an elegant, form-fitting,
but half-finished dress
with no hems or neat facings,
just a forest of loose strings
fenced in with masking tape
and pins that scarify the flesh.
I wore the dress to a lunch date
with an old friend, but she
quickly spotted a hanging thread,
which she yanked like the cord
to a lawnmower—not to break
the thread, nor to unravel
the corporeal secret, but to tug
into being a small pucker
in the outer fabric—
to make visible to all
that single flaw.

Rachel Jennings teaches English at San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas. Her poetry chapbook, Knoxville Girl: The Walk to the River, will be released by Finishing Line Press in May 2011. She has also published two other books of poetry: Elijah’s Farm (Pecan Grove Press, 2008) and Hedge Ghosts (LaNana Creek Press, 2001).