is up The Met’s stone steps,
so many that I have trouble collecting 
my girthy tourist’s breaths

and my palms, all sweaty, 
smeared with ink 
from his crinkled face,

wrinkled in the brochure, and
to think I’m too underdressed 
for a pocket square,

so up goes the tee’s hem
to blot my forehead dry
enough, when, of course,

there goes my furry gut’s apron
for everyone to see 
it unfurling like the carpet

Claudia Schiffer stomped
toward that one Lagerfeld photoshoot:
her mean mien

of a pouty puss made up 
to an almost-
black face, blond braided back

under a theoretical afro, 
an aphrodisiac, you know, 
what men want, a diasporic taste

in their ladies: hot 
enough to boil a stew pot, thin 
as ladle handles, good cooks

in the bedroom—yet 
still Lagerfeld wanted
supremacy’s payload, to not see

that which was too colored 
for his pleathered hands to hold 
not but to plunder, and so here we are

staring up at his sketched waifs,
craning our necks
to take in the niched wall,

each gown an upturned urn
shelved in its own alcove, 
dressed in nothing

but archive’s bleached light, 
the mannequins’ clean faces 
looking down on us—

crowded together 
like the staggered heads 
of snaggleteeth 
in his stitched mouth.

I.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

When Beauty and Beauty meet
   All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
   And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
   With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
   After—after—

Where Beauty and Beauty met,
   Earth’s still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
   And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
   And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
   After—after—