hook

a hook for an eye
this ribbon for a slip

there’s a pigeon in the pot
and tree makes the room 

your foot on the boards
your head in the sky

no mind if your stockings snag
are splinter-caught

the red thread
frayed or snag

walk now on swollen feet
on feet that are bound-in

with red and orange 
with stocking threads

these can be mended
these can be made whole again

            you wouldn’t even
            notice the tear

sequins

red on gold under gold the red thread will tie in the sequin
the dress will transform from the funerary gown of soft cloth

metal pearl mother-of-pearl the peacock sequins emphasise
the scar, where it was cradled in soft cloth / it shifts with light

it now shifts with light 
                             a battle armour with shiny metal frilling

a mail-coat 	
an armoured dress

the metal frill catches and disperses light from
embonpoint to point of candlelight it is no dust
no accretion of dust occurs in the music of fabric

flame does not show yellow in blue blue glass

sequin it: it hides the wound
sequin it:  with the red thread
sequin it: the loosed skein

tack it in stitch on stitch and
sequin it 
                cover it

red on gold the new dress

red on gold under gold red the thread will tie into the dress
will transform it from funerary gown to soft cloth of gold on

gold on red laid beneath cinnabar the leaf glue piece-by-piece
to the wet yolk paint they are making me a new red gown of

threaded threadless pin-pricked and the tooled leaf
        
what new fossil is this? 

spool

red thread unravels in its wooden box
                                           sepulchered with:
                                           loose sequins
                                           button-bones
                                           needles
                                           wires
                                           furled tape measures

theres a jawed scissors for cutting rough cloth and linen-stuffs


I am two:
                                           my bisection is equatorial
                                           not a vertical splice or gather-to


walking broken-footed does little for my mermaid humour
I’d rather lie in three: head  torso and bottom-half:

                                           but they disallow me the luxury
                                           they have made this dress for me


their cunning craft formed the exsosexo skeleton
of my thigh-gap emblazoned with its stone whorl

Chris Murray is a poet and essayist. Her most recent book Gold Friend was published in 2020 by Turas Press, Dublin. Chris is working on her sixth book and loves the work that goes into making books. Chris founded ‘Poethead’ a site dedicated to platforming work by women poets, their translators, and editors. A member of Fired! Irish Women Poets and the Canon, she archives objects related to the canonical neglect of women poets at RASCAL, Queen’s University, Belfast.