The Cutting Edge

Clothes

Her weight on one stiletto heel,
the CEO clicks a PowerPoint slide:

 Tomorrow’s threads
           already
           history

Our job is to put endless spin on
the vanishing weekend. To innovate.
Keep out in front or you’re dead meat.
I check the latest wedding dress
is on the website.

  Perfect for the Postmodern Bride
  this lovely gown is made from handmade paper

Paper lets you make the statement best.
You consume the garment whole
in just one wear:
the ultimate performance gear
made to go up
in smoke at the reception.

And to replay
those priceless memories—
the bundled wedding highlights video.

Flesh

Back from my workout at the gym,
I settle down,
to search the blogs
for new ideas.
In this job you can’t afford much sleep.
I keep awake
with whatever it takes.

Making a left-field trip
through true crime sites, I find
Sagawa-san, the Sorbonne cannibal.

Cool concept but
I can’t help feeling sick
reading the detailed memoir of his meal.
Like I’m in a nightmare
where I can’t spit out
somebody else’s warm, well-slobbered gum.

Her rubbery and disappointing breast.

Paintings of buttocks
signed with knife and fork—are up there too,
for sale by credit card.
I get it, then.
He’s like us after all.
It’s only marketing.
People will buy
whatever’s packaged right.
One guy’s yuck factor’s another guy’s, well...
meat☺

Bones

Wait, here’s a site that’s really gross!
Great towers of human bones,
inside a glass pagoda
on display

Put there by Buddhist monks,
(aren’t they vegan?)
these are the victims
of the Killing Fields.

What is the angle here?
It can’t be tourism.
Who’d go?
There is no
business plan
that I can see that could excuse
a map of Kampuchea,
made out of skulls
attached to a wall board
in a museum
originally a school
and then a torture chamber.

I’m out of here.
Time I got back to threads.

Well? Everybody’s got to live.

About the Poet
________________________________________________________________________________

After spending almost fifteen years in Japan, Sue Stanford now lives in Melbourne. Her poetry has been widely published in Australia and she has won a number of Australian and international prizes, particularly in the field of haikai.

Email: suse@optusnet.com.au