Poor thing, she hasn’t been the same since her husband died
– Blood and Black Lace (1964, dir. Mario Bava)
No less than humans, the mannequins ache
for love. Why, they would do anything to be
touched by long and holy fingers. They have
no heads; still, they would welcome cocaine.
(Who can blame them?) All the rooms echo:
haute couture. The heavy, antique furniture
welcomes neon light the way the mountains
bruise pink and purple these mornings after
a snow. A faceless man. A black coat, fedora.
The red book burning in a gold-bright flame.
Michael Marberry‘s poetry has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, Guernica, Waxwing, West Branch, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize recipient and former Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry at Emory University, he currently teaches poetry, literature, and comics at Radford University in Virginia.