The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: How to Play by Katie Manning

---

Scattergories: A Regret

for Rick & Chris

On the boat between Ireland
and Scotland, all I could think about
was crotchless panties. The category
was articles of clothing. The letter was C.
Coat. Cardigan. Cap. Clogs. Corduroys.
None of these came to me. Crotchless
panties. I was sitting beside my professor,
an older man who looked just like
the bust of Mark Twain in his office.
I could not write crotchless panties. I looked
across to my friends to gain inspiration
from their clothing—t-shirts, jeans, sneakers.
They were no help. Crotchless panties.
Crotchless panties. My pen hovered
over the paper, still. The last bit of sand
fell.
         Getting off the boat, I told a friend
about getting stuck on crotchless panties.
He thought this was so funny that he
whispered it to me over and over
for the next two weeks of our trip:
walking into my first real castle crotchless
panties, buying a scarf on the Royal mile
crotchless panties, trying vegetarian haggis
crotchless panties, finding our professor
asleep in a museum crotchless panties,
eating curry in Oxford crotchless panties,
tasting Earl Grey for the first time crotchless
panties, gasping at the sight of Big Ben
crotchless panties, standing beside
C.S. Lewis’s grave crotchless panties.
The words crotchless panties haunted me,
a mantra I couldn’t control.
                                                     Back in America,
I read my professor’s poem that was shaped
like a breast on the page. He was edgier
than I thought. To this day, I regret not using
the words that came to me when I needed them.

---