The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: GHOSTS, MODELS, VISIONS BY GINGER KO

THE ROTTED WATER OF MY URBANITY
I can’t make
anything from me,
anything not
already dead. I look
to my family
but none of them
are like me. They
have led up to me.
What do we do
when they no longer
need the mannequin
casings for their
clever matrices?
I asked a keeper
and they became
so angry that they
led me to the edge
of the dolphin tank,
pointed at the warders
who must masturbate
the males, massaging
pink extensions
as the dolphins float
belly up against
the poolside. When
your own body
is meaningless, when
you sit at home
on soft furniture
because your
automaton sits
at work every hour
of the day, suddenly
you begin to love
all the bodies.

This selection comes from the collection Ghosts, Models, Visions, available from Bloof Books. Order your copy here. Our curator for November is M. Mack.

Ginger Ko is the author of Motherlover (Bloof Books), Inherit (Sidebrow), Comorbid (Lark Books), and Ghosts, Models, Visions (Bloof Books). Her poetry and essays can be found in American Poetry Review, The Offing, VIDA Review, and elsewhere. You can find her online at http://www.gingerko.com

M. Mack is a genderqueer poet, editor, and fiber artist in Virginia. Ze is the author of Theater of Parts (Sundress Publications, 2016) and three chapbooks, most recently MINE (Big Lucks Books, forthcoming 2017). Their work has appeared in such places as cream city review, Cloud Rodeo, Rogue Agent, Menacing Hedge, and The Queer South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). Mack is a founding co-editor of Gazing Grain Press, an assistant editor for Cider Press Review, and the monster maker behind What Is Reality Plushies. Find them at mxmack.com.