Clothing Poem
Isn’t it strange we dress ourselves in so many skins?
Elbows lost in a rack of silk surrongs my mind starts to want some numbers. Like, how many fingertips have ever buttoned a blouse?
How many palms have ever brushed the shoulders of a suit jacket, and how many chins have lifted in the mirror at the sight of stately besuited shoulders?
How many laces looped and tied in all the centuries of rabbits chased through holes? How many snaps snapped, clasps hooked, and zippers zipped?
Isn’t it strange, just a little, we dress ourselves in so many skins?
What becomes of the millions of tiny stitches that carry us through our days after we shed them? How many hands were pricked in their inception? How many hours behind factory walls for their nativity? How many lifetimes before the unraveling?
In privilege or in poverty, in freedom or conformity, in aspiration, in denial, in hope, in strife, we carry them on our backs— our little outlines, our second selves. A blessing then, for the seamstress and her clothing.
