I put on my poetry suit.
The prose falls away
like a dream I cannot remember,
the images unraveling like threads
in a cheap dress, sewn in Hong Kong
to feed the hungry mouths
of sweet-faced Chinese children.

Now I am in my poetry suit.
I zip myself into it,
pink as flesh, tight as the suit
I was born it, & looking
seamless as a perfect poem,
gleaming as the golden fleece,
slim as a stripper at the Crazy Horse Saloon,
transparent as silk stockings,
& smelling of jasmine & tea rose.

But what was that old perfume
I left in the pocket,
that cotton ball soaked
in Bal a Versailles,
that yellowing glace glove
that lacks a mate,
that fine cambric handkerchief
brown with dried blood
from an old nosebleed?

Even poetry, pure as nothing
but snow or music,
drags life along
in its hidden pockets.

Oh for an art
that is not made of words
with all their odors
& indiscretions.

© Erica Mann Jong

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