Goodwill, Buffalo, NY
Is it the glassy, empty potential
of the unfilled blouses
their prescient capability,
flat as catalogued moths
hung on racks
that require realization?
A poem, for instance,
pulls something thin
over itself.
A transparency with a weird fur collar.
A skin of microscopic dirtiness.
Or, is it the soul comes to clothing
already intricately made.
Seeks a garment
a white horse hair
to enfold its deviation
pink as a petal, foldable as a Kleenex.
It’s raining outside the thrift store at night.
My clothing is stained by strangers.
The poem slips away through slots of lace
liquefied as a fat caterpillar
dressed in the capsule of a cocoon.
Copyright Credit: Kimberly Lyons, "Goodwill, Buffalo, NY." Copyright © 2017 Kimberly Lyons. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2017)