Barbara Duarte Esgalhado
and Susan Bee

Susan Bee
“Bliss Dancer”
Photograph of Bliss Dance sculpture
on Treasure Island, San Francisco

Permission
By Barbara Duarte Esgalhado
Response

There is something peculiar
about a dress turned inside out.

With seams agape, unabashed
it just sits there

taking up air
merely existing, making no excuses

for laying open, naked, possible.
So much potential pressing against

a Cerulean sky, hidden again,
if we just flip the thing outside in.

Then we’re right back to normal,
to the ordinary, to that place

where we are suppose to live
in deep appreciation of the smallness of every day.

We tell ourselves: this is what life is
this is what really matters

the maddening gestures of a loved one
a recalcitrant child’s relinquished sigh

as he finally surrenders himself to sleep
a close friend’s casual, careless remarks

that could cut deep
if we let them.

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