Rusty Morrison
fashion statements
no new antagonisms then the woman standing in line behind you tapping
her expensive nails on her expensive purse her coincidence of annoyance
too loudly akin to your own shiny surfaces glass-top customized
gel coated surround-sound in an apartment where you can’t
make the rent like her your limits are leaky the afterlife is not
a given a dog outside running with his leash trailing behind slapping
pavement another noisy philosophy you don’t have time to study even
running a dog is still trapped in the same captivity that’s ringing in your ears
whether or not you hear it on the fateful afternoon when belligerently
oppositional societies finally meet in the TV series and even though your
favorite character lives through it suddenly you don’t care with the kind
of caring that you thought would always be a comfort
to you
fashion statements
you like fashion because it’s good to have a project drape some fabric
pretend each thing sewn into a shape stays separate as if you could keep
what’s inside any one thing from the other fashion says when your
husband rubs an idea off his face as if you didn’t see it that means it wasn’t
there while designers shift back again to stark impact from phatic as
the latest coined coincident you know to just keep picking up every
safety pin stray cat baby crying in the movie you hate and still you stay until
the end of it whatever you find must’ve been left for you on purpose
yours to begin with is why you won’t buy a face crème’s promise to
smooth away your fears of phones ringing even if only once when you were
seven it rang about your granddad dying while your mom rolled your hair in
the stink of Clairol’s home-permanent wave as you stood there wanting
something bad to happen to her at the moment she answered it fashion
is what you wear to exhibit that you
wished it
fashion statements
how to catch the gaze of a lost object tempt it back the fox stole was your
grandmother’s kept it for years not for the dead eyes hard little paws
but the lush auburn fur was soft as a glance that could look right inside your
every emptiness and fill you like breath your husband’s sigh is never as
observant stealing across your bare shoulders in films clichéd transactions
occupy us with foreground so that background can suffuse the dark where
we sit in a back row where there never can be an obvious is why you
thought you could keep the fox and why you’ve lost what can’t be lured
back in the photo you see your grandmother was beautiful in the fox
she worked in a cannery and her husband had two jobs to afford
the fashion of foreground where nothing lasts still you envy your
grandmother at least she knew she could
wear it
Rusty Morrison is the author of five books, including Beyond the Chainlink (Ahsahta), After Urgency (Tupelo’s Dorset Prize), the true keeps calm biding its story (Ahsahta) which won The Sawtooth Prize, Academy of American Poet’s Laughlin Award, Northern California Book Award, DiCastagnola Award. Recent poems have appeared or will appear in A Public Space, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, PEN Poetry Series, Talisman, The Volta, VOLT. Poems have been anthologized in the Norton Postmodern American Poetry 2 nd Edition, The Arcadia Project: Postmodern Pastoral, and Beauty is a Verb. Her essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Harriet during National Poetry Month at Poets.org, and elsewhere. She’s Omnidawn’s co-publisher, www.omnidawn.com. Her website: www.rustymorrison.com.