Devon Balwit

Cindy Sherman Shows Us the Way

Each unnatural—as we are—picked
to pieces before our mirrors. Why not
a pixie, an alien, a dinosaur? Why not
clown lips, a sparkling pullulation?
We too are islands colonized
by flotsam, gutters clotted with the runoff
of galaxies. None binary, deep pores
and mustache-wisps abut long lashes,
an ingenue’s moue. Her colors are heinous,
strip mall slap-dash, the office
of the only doctor one can afford.
Nobody’s here but me, Cindy sing-songs
to her anatomy dummy, content
in her agoraphobia. Tenement matryoshkas,
we house all the selves we’ll ever need,
our work an act of charity, to find the least
horrible and brood upon it like an egg.

--
Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Grist, and Oxidant Engine among others.