When I was a student at the University of Southern Mississippi, I was lucky enough to have Angela Ball as one of my academic advisers.  During my years there, I went to several of her poetry readings.  And I should tell you now that I’m not really a big poetry fan, but Angela’s poems are lovely.  So you can imagine that I was pleasantly surprised to find her poetry here at Lemuria.

One of my favorites is her poem “The Dress with Books on It Is Too Small” from the collection Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds. I thought I’d share it with you right here. So here goes.

The Dress with Books on It Is Too Small

In a local salvage outlet, a meta-store avid

For disaster, there’s a dress with books on it:

Printed shelves of “classics.”

Perfect for the girl with boundaries

For her dates: “Get your hand away

From The Mill on the Floss,” she could say, or

“Ethan Frome is off-limits.”

Buy it, why don’t you, and take it folded

To the library, to be the slim librarian’s plumage

As she haunts the stacks. Or convert it

To a tablecloth, so that you may eat risotto

Off Great Expectations and rest your wineglass

On Moby Dick.

Imagine the textile mill: Clack,

Darcy asks Elizabeth for her hand, Whirr,

Anna Karenina throws herself beneath a train.

Frenetic weavings of stories, till they’re whole cloth.

Soon, a reporter will write MIRACLE

FABRIC TAKES SURFACES TO NEW DEPTHS,

SAVES LITERATURE.

-Kaycie

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