The Yellow Dress Summer Left Behind

It would be the yellow one
my grandmother hemmed by hand,
the stitches a little crooked
where the fan kept blowing
her thread off course.

Cotton thin enough to see
my knees through it,
a collar that itched
if I sat too long
in the shade waiting
for the ice cream truck's
one broken note.

I'd wear it barefoot
on the gravel—the kind of pain
you choose because the alternative
is staying indoors
where the box fan just moves
the heat around
instead of taking it.

There'd be a grass stain
at the hem I never got out,
from the summer I fell
trying to catch a firefly
with my bare hand
instead of a jar,
because jars felt
like keeping something
that wanted to leave.

The zipper would stick
halfway up my back —
someone always had to finish it,
their fingers cool
against my sunburned shoulders,
and I'd stand still
and let them,
the closest thing
to being taken care of
I knew how to ask for.

By August it wouldn't fit right anymore.
Not torn, not outgrown exactly —
just tighter across the chest
in a way that made me
stand differently,
made me notice
I was starting to take up
a different kind of room
in the world.

I'd fold it at the bottom of a drawer
before the first cool morning
made the decision for me,
not because I was finished with it
but because you can't argue
with a season
that's already halfway
out the door,
its screen door slap
still hanging in the air
like a sentence
it didn't bother
to finish.