Nyla Matuk: Manifesto

MANIFESTO
For Kate Block

  Schiaparelli with a shoe: Prada with a cigar?
In scandalous blouse and bonnet, Picasso’s Dora Maar
  blossoming as a shoe or bicycle?
  Schiap’s hat made of shoes, to sit on a woman’s
head, saying, It’s her fault if she is ugly—only
  herself to blame, and her progress is a recycled
  Enlightenment. After a fashion, entitlement.
Dampening of excitement: upon the curly volute, atop
  columns of mens’ architectures, the baroque encroached.
  The honey-coloured ramparts of Anne Gregory’s hair
a disguise more authentic than any lobster
  dress devised, or slip-shod apparati…
  economy of pincered corsetery worn on shellfish dentata,
a gripping, headstrong stepping stone—
  the problem of a single-plane distortion is the problem
  of Woman. Never loved for herself alone.

Nyla Matuk, from Stranger, Vehicule Press, 2012. Posted with permission from the press.