PRAISE FOR THE INNER LINING OF MY MORPHING APPAREL
Satin worn past twelve is buttoned satire.
all that glam spent, unstarching uniform grains.
low-waist silk & the sagging yarn, both heavy with polymer sweat.
mother sow cotton by criminal luck,
practise woolgathering in our distraction.
her snore: a staunch uprising.
what language picks offence at a lady unwillingly to wear her country to numbness?
on no occasion has it been me,
to purchase a fabric unplagued by grief.
even the bugs rock denims to levitation.
I— asphalt glory.
color riot, in ways that puts coffin out of fashion,
snithe the threading to come clean as shorelines.
It’s a question of what lingerie affords liberty in a different town,
what vows held us back from the sea this long.
I lose sparkle, each time I conceive being sentenced to a bristle sackcloth
all my fragile life.
my sternum aches for harmful collars, for tough cravats.
each knit: a riffraff defying strangling.
behold, my exit dress
earned with stubborn currency.
praise for the inner lining, ribboned as a door.
what oath ordained escape to be one way?