Who speaks upon my Dress
after Robert Herrick
The town will have me, will it what
fixed in my chi-chi chiffon dress
no matter which way I’m seen
I’m not, my seams are seamless.
Ain’t she fit, I’ve heard them say,
who knows what’s skin, what’s shine
chi-chi, that liquefaction of her clothes
a top brand, I won’t lie. Like me
it’s passed through quite a few
hands, but these will be its last.
I swear, I’ll wear it to my grave
unless I get cremated – for
humans burn hot, they say,
like great wads of paper, O
How that glittering taketh me.
And they like the way
it blows up, chi-chi, as I walk,
like feathers catched alight
and this marbled stain that winds
its fat around around, as a belt
which has no end.
They like the shade, the shades
chi-chi –
is it black, is it white – this coy
goodbye to light, I am fixed
for the end of time tonight.
What some may call chi-chi
chic, I dub apocalyptic.
Whenas in silks my Julia goes
The poet sings.
He’s at a table in the back.
His pen is stuck, and so he stops.
But O I am thirsty, like a god
whose thirst wants overtaking.
That brave Vibration, each way free
that makes me but a blur
and not just to myself,
I mean all the way to the aether
for then I wouldn’t have to
chi-chi think, and all the mirrors
would fall flat, and speak two ways:
of a delicate silk fledgling
beneath which, a mortal’s stuffed –
too plump thank god for wrinkles,
too tanned for actual sun
with fat that folds its unread scrolls
a quiver that blurs the walk
(who knows what’s skin, what’s shine)
each stab at world perfection
as clear as mirror-smudge, yet
the fledgling flits and flutters
renders each part into dream.
Then then (he sings) how sweetly flowes
how my Julia
goes,
and his eyes
cast out, or back.
They say he’s lost or dazed – like one of them
caught up in myth, or on seeing one
have nothing chi-chi to say.