Capucci’s Dresses

Three nuns walk their rosaries at dusk.
Their prayers run ahead like small dogs tethered
to wrists and palms. The beads glow
phosphorescent, like forest stars.

Even the faceless dress has flushed:
all of the subtleties in flame and heat.
Woman as apparition. Cello. A conch cut open.
A pagoda. A firecracker. An orange peeled back.

Windswept leaves become angel wings
at sunset during a summer storm.
The nine skirts ripple out and away:
a pebble on water or Dante’s rings.

Emari DiGiorgio makes a mean arugula quesadilla and has split-boarded the Tasman Glacier. She teaches at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and is a Poet-in-the-Schools through the state arts council and the Dodge Poetry Foundation. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Arsenic Lobster, Mead, the Raleigh Review, and Smartish Pace.