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

I SANG MIND BECAUSE
I COULD NOT SING BODY
When our automatons
still belonged to us,
we gave them
the idle cruelty
of our attention,
we tripped and shoved
them while they
to-and-froed
in their tasks.
Sometimes we would
throw a clear liquid on them,
a temporary inconvenience
of water. Sometimes
we would throw
a clear liquid on them,
a corrosive meant to maim.
We watched them stutter
as they persisted
at programs
that had nothing
to do with us.
We broke
every contract.
Age hardens hands
into little wedges,
shatters their light
over tools that
needed grasping.
I remember
that on the assembly line
I looked up
and glimpsed the quiet
bodies of doves
perched side-by-side,
roosting in the rafters
for the night. Only
one’s body contains
information. Who
will remember
one’s mind? It wasn’t
until a finger nudged
me ON that I
unbent from the waist
and awoke to
the eternal strangeness
of another body
at rest, mouth
wide open in
the dark and eyes
closed to the night.

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.