FOUR POEMS for Lucie Brock-Broido
Correspondence from Madam Rachel, Purveyor of Eternal Youth, to Mister Walter Potter, Anthropomorphic Dioramist, ca. 1880
Most Splendid Immortalist: Herewith you have a letter sent by my solicitor, writtenin my final leapt year, my sliver of pound cake—the one meant to even off everything.I have chosen my undergarments for the first epoch of bloodlessness:the whalebone crinoline will reach you shortly. (I would nevereat a creature butof my costume I leave to your discretion; I have seen the perfectionof your kitten-wedding, the toms in their breeks, the kates in their mantuas—though I trust you’ll leave the Aquitaine hunting cloak for the feast of St. Hubert.I find I am concerned more so with pose: how should I be in perpetuity?What everlasting gesture of impulsiveness, epiphany, or wonderment?And to remain unwrinkled, must I be upright? If so, I fear the chopinesimpractical with no servants to support me; opera slippers, then, with tights.Meanwhile, a final posthumous concern from my divan of ice: what word will you use?It shan’t be stuffed! Perhaps you will inspire one: it can be your Leotard, Hazard, or Shrapnel,your namesake’s transliteration to Cyrillic. O! I’ll be the eponymof any stasis you decree, in whatever circus or garden party. Until thenI remain hopeful, however stiffly phrased and awkward, that you’ll agreeto my request—to Taxiderm Me.
