Why I Don't Shop at the Mall

I want a dress made of broad sunshine and one of cold dawn

One with the frisson of stars and one woven with the milk of the moon

I want one of stained glass, panels chipping as I walk

And one the color of desert canyons, the red earth moving

I want to clothe myself in the lace of sea foam, fleeting angles and barely obscured breasts

I need a dress covered with feathers, the corbeau of a crow sleeping in a nest of petroleum

Another of soft moss, millions of furred tongues teasing, edged in sharp wet stone

One dark with the ink of great works of literature and bibles and airport novels, continually re-stained

Or a gown of the raw silk left on cheeks raptured by the North Wind

A crimson bodice sewn from the doomed sails of Argonaut fleets, a kirtle of argentine ghost-future dirigible skin

A dress of stiff harvest straw, ripely pricking, the new creature underneath; peeking

A frock of tender rose petals just

beginning

to bruise

Also, mall people are weird