Here’s some ekphrasis I fashioned for The Indianapolis Review — “Something to Be Proudly Worn Into Heaven” — a response to an insect-flecked necklace (Schiaparelli, fall/winter 1938-39) and Joyelle McSweeney’s essay “Bug Time: Chitinous Necropastoral Hypertime against the Future“:

worn with the mnemonic sensation
of a weathered beetle’s precious metal

call it a resurrection strategy
something to be proudly worn into Heaven

memory after memory
we bleed only to catch the time

autocatalytic degradation
another neckline frozen in time

A second poem, “Cipher,” was inspired by a dress of glittering swarms designed by the late creative director of Lanvin, Alber Elbaz, who once said: “we can’t control nature — we are part of it”

survived by every dark green dragonfl-
ight every cruel legislation vib-
rating stinging diamonding pearl-
ing baubles blue swarms of possibility
designing bodies anew

These are two poems from a larger collection called Worn, my 70+ poem response to garments and pieces that appeared in Andrew Bolton’s 2024 exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

Many, many thanks to Natalie Solmer for publishing these poems!