The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: As She Appears by Shelley Wong

Wardrobe Best Dressed 
This selection, chosen by guest editor Samantha Duncan, is from As She Appears by Shelley Wong, released by YesYes Books in 2022.

Weather Advisory

it is foggy & the ferry will not travel east—the captain lost
without his radar sonar—excuse me sirs this is a gay

dancing emergency—is heterosexuality the fog—I am slow
with too much time, dressed in four shades of grey

& a streak of pink—oh it’s an older crowd—
oh that’s me—we all had the same Madonna-Whitney childhood

set to synthesizer beats—today I tried to pluck a pinecone
but the stem said no—I am sorry, tree, I meant

to ask consent—between the Pines & Cherry Grove,
there is one path for tourists, another for cruising—

among the rangers, I feel famous (are you
the writer)—hello bird—I have no sweetness

to offer the bees—where did Frank O’Hara wander
& fall asleep on the beach—the first inhabitant of Fire Island

was a shipwrecker—he lured ships to shore
& killed the crews—it is not certain

whether the island is named for these warning flames
or its sunsets—I am a fire sign—who should I touch

with this burning—I loop along the bay—
the marina—the beach—emptied of families—

in the straight neighborhood, I watch men on break
pause one by one to take in my neon floral shorts

they reveal my kiss of a birthmark—the walk
of a messy-haired woman—some faraway flower

Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears (YesYes Books, May 2022), winner of the 2019 Pamet River Prize. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, and New England Review. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and Vermont Studio Center. She is an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and lives in San Francisco. 

Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her work has appeared in BOAAT, SWWIM, Meridian, and The Pinch. She lives in Houston.

sundresspublications
Latest posts by sundresspublications (see all)
Published

Leave a Reply