Ode to fashion
(for Doris De Pont)
Of your over-reaching lines
and the displaced
hem
enough said, fashion being
a kind of biography
in which
the shape of a life
is contained
but not
in words. Let us consider
instead what is revealed
in the measuring
room: the state of undress that lies
at the heart of dress. Oh
dizzying hemispheres
of Fashion, you encircle the
dangerous princesses
of Monaco
as you do the waists of young mothers
recently delivered of
their children.
Scholars listen to the rustling pages
of your collars and cuffs
as indeed they might
ponder the infinite sleeves
of your infinite arms
rocking us
both towards and away
from sleep. So like
and so unlike
the world of which you are
a part, you have
your designs
and your points of distraction
your deft marriages
and the occasional
embarrassment. Out on your limb
you wear your creases
but not as
we wear age. Yet you are
also a museum
of gestures
glances, with your multi-storied
wardrobes, those libraries of
previous seasons
apartment blocks in which
evenings of a life
are stored.
If we tumble, your good skirts
will gather us
and if we fall
your lavish designs will raise us
again. Should we become
unstitched
your fabrics will wrap around the two
of us – at least until
season’s end. Then
it will be
curtains
and the wafting poetry
of curtains
for you
floating out towards the horizon
of the infinity pool
where these
cultivated waters touch
a raging sea, that
quiet seam
beside which I sit
awaiting further
instructions.
Gregory O’Brien