trout

A blue satin suit with a peplum

Elizabeth Smither

What a pilgrimage to find it.
Harvey Nichols, Marks & Sparks, Dorothy Perkins

in main streets and side streets
small shops and emporiums

in search of something for my petite daughter
something ephemeral (this season's beauty)

but enduring (the beautiful cloth, the dyeing,
the cutting, the paper pattern – especially

the pattern, like a loose tail, of the peplum)
and here it is, in late afternoon

on its hanger, on its silver rack
beautifully, gleamingly blue

as a bluebird's wing with
the shadow of dusk added

as if a small emboldened bird
a domestic bird, inhabitant of gardens

feeling the peplum of its tail flew
in the direction of the horizon.