Plenty
- Plenty
I’m all lost in Fabric World, the one-stop sewing supermarket tucked in a strip mall on the edge of town, a lonely string of abandoned storefronts
where nothing thrives except this lavish emporium dedicated to needle and thread, to zippers in all possible lengths. Here I find patterns,
file cabinets packed with them; I admire laces and trims, those small decorative touches, skim pattern catalogs complete with color photos—all the dresses,
skirts, pants and blouses that anyone could sew, long as they bought the right pattern, right cloth. Cloth surrounds me everywhere here,
wrapped on heavy bolts, ready to be touched, cut. Loving the textures I find, I walk from aisle to aisle, whispering fabric names: cotton, linen,
silk and wool, crepe, flannel, fleece and gabardine, brocade, chiffon, satin and tweed, corduroy, denim, poplin and seersucker. Here I find [End Page 459]
voile, so lightweight and sheer that I don’t dare touch it, I find velvet so plush I can’t resist letting one finger trail through its plush nap, taffeta for airy blouses,
skimpy dresses, broadcloth tightly woven and strong. Here are the glittery metallics that glide off the bolt like liquid metal, here’s the fake fur, and yes, even the double knit’s here, that ill-fated
acrylic. And the designs overwhelm me: boastful strident plaids, tricky stripes and diagonals, polka dots, country calico, floral motifs, African prints.
So much for my eyes to take in— moody midnight blues, sensual apple reds, rich browns the same shade as a perfectly aged Stradivarius. Who cares that I
can’t sew, that I don’t have a sewing machine to call my own, that I have trouble seeing the eye of almost every needle. I am here because I love to think
of all the things that can be made from these yards and yards of cloth, the combinations infinite as long as the shears are sharp, pincushions full, threads pulled tight in every seam.
Selected works by Allison Joseph:
-
• Summers on Screvin
-
• On Sidewalks, on Streetcorners, As Girls
-
• Playing Rough
-
• Artist-in-Residence
-
• It’s Tough to be a Girl Scout in the City
-
• The Tenant
-
• Señora Williams
-
• Plenty
-
• An Interview with Allison Joseph
Allison Joseph, who was born in London, is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale). Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals, including The Kenyon Review, Parnassus, and Callaloo. She is author of What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand Press, 1992), a volume of poems. She graduated from Kenyon College and received the M.F.A. from Indiana University (Bloomington).
