What does it feel like to be this shroud
on a hanger, this storm cloud hanging
in the closet? We itch to feel it, it itches
to be felt, it feels like an itch—

encrusted with beading, it’s an eczema
of sequins, rough, gullied, riven,
puckered with stitchery, a frosted window
against which we long to put our tongues,               

a vase for holding the long-stemmed 
bouquet of a woman’s body. 
Or it’s armor and it fits like a glove.
The buttons run like rivets down the front.

When we’re in it we’re machinery,
a cutter nosing the ocean of a town.
Right now it’s lonely locked up 
in the closet; while we’re busy

fussing at our vanity, it hangs there
in the drooping waterfall of itself,
a road with no one on it, bathed
in moonlight, rehearsing its lines.