Resignation Letter to Silent Model Management, and: Casting Call
- Resignation Letter to Silent Model Management, and: Casting Call
Resignation Letter to Silent Model Management
You've flown meso many places I've forgottenwhat month it is, whatcity I'm in. I've seen mostlythe gutted insidesof warehouses, the exposedracks of other models'ribs slipping in and outof dresses. I've heard mostlythe chewed-up syllablesof languages I don't understand.That's why Marlboros. That'swhy Xanax. That's whyblackouts and hospital visits.That's why an applefor breakfastand cocaine by the rail.You pay meto flounce six-foot-three,a hundred and ten poundsin platform heels, my hairgreased and teethforever shining,some two-thousand dollargown in salmon pink or sirloinred forever drippingoff my emaciated frame—while on the other sideof the lens, on the otherside of the TV set, the mirror,the world, a twelve-year-old girlleans into the light, squintsuntil she's a mere sliverof herself, wantsto grow up just like me. [End Page 39]
Casting Call
The line of girls winds all the way
down three flights of stairs and out into third streetand I want to say—open your eyes
girls. Look at the waythe dusty bulb above flickers, as if some moth, somewinged creature's
trapped inside the glassand dying. I want to say look at the girl ahead of you, how shesinks her teeth into red-stained lip as if biting on her very own poison apple
and the nameless others spiraling down the steps at your back. How veryfairytale. How very twelve dancing princesses of us—the way our voices turn and rasp like pagesin the stairwell air until we are a door of light breezed open to sirens, exhaust, pavement. [End Page 40]
Christina Clark earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina–Wilmington. Her poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as the Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Cactus Heart, The Poet's Billow, New South, and Calyx.
