Take measurements to determine the size of it.
How lavish the jacket and sleeves, the inseam.
Appraise from shoulder to shoulder its width.
Measure neck, chest, waist. Note
Its dimensions on brown paper. Otherwise
In the green field of your imagining.
When and where you will wear your suit.
Consider. Running
An errand in town, as if for another?
(Knowing to hide in plain view as a kind of candor.)
Jumping the broom or another revelation
Of a grand joy? Which design to espouse?
Three-piece with jacket and pants ideal for winter?
Vest for keeping cool where there is
No winter? Dress of preposterous number
Of buttons? Make the pattern. Choose
Your fabric. Pin the paper blueprint to your
Cloth. Cut along the edges of the paper
Pattern pieces, then cut again along the flanks
Of your green field’s imagining.
This is drawn from “Acts of Resistance to New England Slavery by Africans Themselves in New England.”
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