Black Velvet
After Babette Deutsch
The dress pools at her ankles, liquid silk
still creamy after a hundred years
of sliding against skin.
The seams let the light in
a few gauzy threads are
all that stand between
her flesh and the goose-pimpling world.
How smoothly it wanders
making thorough inventory
before narrowing to a point.
Slippery, smearing velvet
cut on the bias like it was waiting
for her to run her hands over her body
in the stall forgetting she’s in an antique store,
despite her socks and prickly legs.
She forgets
it’s all going to fall apart
She’s falling in love
with her own curved lines.
Allison Burris grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Oakland, California. She received her MLIS from San Jose State University and her poetry appears or is forthcoming in After Happy Hour Review, Passionfruit, Opal Age Tribune, Avalon Literary Review, and elsewhere.
The Marbled Sigh 