You’d be mistaken if you said the stones
didn’t feel hotter than the sand beneath your feet.
Casting circles along the ground, light
shimmers between the trees. Flowers
reach up to it, along the way shedding petals.
I walk on, gathering about me my dress.

I’ve found recently that I’m happiest in a dress.
Reminiscing memories of prom, I imagine a floor of stones
instead of tile and a corsage of intricate petals
And a sea of feet,
Swaying to a slow song, like flowers
sway into the light

in Sanibel. Imagine our venue as Sanibel where light
brightens every picture and blesses every dress;
where the appearance of flowers
isn’t just a corsage or pretty weeds poking through stones;
where sand adornes feet
and wind means a breeze of perfumed petals.

Twirling down from the trees, petals
blink with color in the light
and stick to ocean-water bathed feet
shaded by my dress.
Days are spent winding along stones
of Sanibel’s flowing garden of flowers

And it becomes captivating. I find elegance in flowers
like prom attendees. They bat their eyes like petals
alight softly on stones.
I see so much light,
I would twirl and twirl and twirl in my dress,
spinning on feet


And if my feet
never touch the ground, at least they’ve danced to lush flowers
and at least my dress
has spilled out around me, meeting petals
soaking light,
cloaking stones.

In Sanibel, I dress for bare feet.
I let myself not be heavy as a stone, I let myself flower.
And I collect petals, to remind me things wither without light.