- Electric Dress:Atsuko Tanaka, Electrical Dress, 1956
Stare before it shorts out, trips and fizzesdim, before the clattery glass can cross
the room and cool—a belle, a bride in bulbs
with a linguini train, an incandescent teapotrat-trap clown-coat grapevine ghost.
Make it up to me! Filaments, a fitting
end, a fragile frock of udders, christmascolored bodies of balloon dachshunds,
bound to pop, but no—they're brittle,
not one would bounce. For the face,a wire cage, for the wrists, two clamps,
an o-ring to rope it up.
Turn it on, take it off, take it over,turn it up—let me help you
with that switch. [End Page 245]
Surely you are not surprisedsuch brightness would be so heavy?
Surely you are not too hot
and shy to smile? Careful now.Let me help you with that switch. [End Page 246]
B. K. Fischer is the author of St. Rage's Vault (The Word Works, 2013; 2012 Washington Prize), Mutiny Gallery (Truman State University Press, 2011; 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize), and Museum Mediations. She is poetry editor at Boston Review.