Fashionable
Been reading loads about fashion in research for my PhD (it’s a hard life, I know)…. so thought I’d post up this poem today for enjoyment :-)
Fitting into a Gucci Dress
Bulges sucked in silk squeezed from earthworms,
her legs trip, tip her skirt like a cow in the dark.
Night asphyxiates her tangled arms, scattering
each pearl like hailstones on pavement,
knocking over buckets full of water.
Butter from the fridge greases heads
stuck between stair railings and could
slip her into the diamante straps
that match the sandals scraping blisters
inside her toes. Crimson nail varnish
highlights each aloe vera-ed fingertip;
they pull, but tugboats couldn’t come
in any more use than the sugar pulled
from birch sap; it trickles with the slippery
seduction of gravity and sticks to hips
and outer thighs plumping waistlines like
drenched towels. Nail biting isn’t slimming.
Still, arteries clot under the pressure,
willing skin to melt, nerves like his
first fumble with bra hooks, unzipping
trousers with one hand, flattening the earth to how
it was, back before Columbus, before navigation,
back before panty-lines could ruin reputations.
Sx
