Image: “Paradigm Shift” by Morgan Reed. “My New Dress” was written by Sarah Carleton for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
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MY NEW DRESS
with bodice and gathered sleeves
kicks up a gust of colors.
Here I come, a freshly ironed wave
that scrubs the morning clean,
skirt swinging beneath a parasol,
waistline the fulcrum cotton rustles
around on a tropical day stitched
with yellow piping and white petals,
washed in turquoise seawater,
dabbed with terra cotta, edged in pink,
drenched in lavender—I stroll
the market like a paint-splashed
palette, not a woman but women,
plural, a flock, each of me
so dazzling all you see is sunshine.
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
November 2024, Artist’s Choice
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Comment from the artist, Morgan Reed: “What a difficult decision! There were many interesting and imaginative poems submitted, including a few that were remarkably parallel to my own thoughts in making the painting. ‘My New Dress’ takes the image in a different direction, but in the end, I was charmed by its freshness, sensory joy, and closing flourish.”
