The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Maybe the Body by Asa Drake

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The World Begs for Transcription

My mother leaves a voicemail asking I work back-of-house when I can.

I haven’t had a parent call afraid for my safety since 9/11.

Close to where I live, a couple books a hotel, purchases paramilitary gear, pays
off a credit card, in order to hinder my life. The news refrains from describing
the white couple’s terrorist act at the Capitol. I wonder if it’s not a question of
the act but who feels it. Who has a good way to respond?

I’m going to distract you.

Nanay calls on Monday night to try out her new tablet. She alternates between
I’m beautiful and you’re beautiful. Beauty, meaning a pair.

We admit to gaining weight, and Ate Bernnie congratulates my well attended
Zoom meeting.

(Lots of repetition.)

Nanay wants to show that her hair is all white.

I’ve yet to find a term of self-reference that does not equate to ornament.





Someone I don’t know mispronounces my name—worse—someone who would
like to know me.

Be good and kind, they say, or else. But I am not good or kind or else I would not
look for retribution.

Cardinals and squirrels before summer when I don’t want to be responsible for
their nests.

On a podcast, a poet I love names the many accountability groups she’s joined
this year. I am jealous of her self-discipline and the word accountability, used as
a term of self-discipline, but that is not what I want.

I insist on protection. Pick up an omen the last night of the year. Foremost sin
in my mind, the one not worth confessing.

Beloved, if it is the year of the comet, do not look for the comet.

I stay so long in one place my hair lines the nests. I don’t know how to hold
down what I love, but I’ve eaten so much fruit trying to lure the animal to me.

I go to the grocery store. Two men open the door for me.

I cannot stop them.

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