Everything Must Go
BY IMANI DAVIS
After Xandria Phillips
as is tradition for the women / of my blood, / I shop too much. will sacrifice / a paycheck like a lamb for the chance to conjure up / a fresh silhouette. & i am supposed to hate / this about us. the nerve: to wrap our bodies in myths / we can’t afford. but i want to / make peace with this. i want to make peace with my grandmother’s gentle back / -room dedicated solely to the choir / of her hatboxes, quiet revelations / lining each wall. all day, she darts between the news & the home shopping network, unsure / whether to spend her pension or her prayer. once, she fled / a country ribboned by war / as if it were a dressing room. practiced walking in america / -n shoes until balance became her. to this day, she nests / for her daughters until there is nothing left / on the racks. stores enough patent-leather & lace to clothe every ghost / she left in Honduras. & who could call such a selfless love / a waste? still, my mother say grandma got too much / space in her heart. too many shelves inside of her she can’t wait to fill. / we have this in common. on weeknights, I midnight / scroll across landscapes of pixelated fabric / without direction. check for sales like my life / depends on it. desire a beauty / aimless as light. each morning, I wake wanting / to script a new creation story / across my skin. dare the day to reinvent itself until / everything that’s hurt me is a stain / washed clean. sometimes, the mirror is the only place / I decide what happens / to my body. here, i sketch myself into a velvet miracle / no one dare touch. the night / the thief undresses me, every drawer in my chest lay empty / as a scream. how to replace what is stolen / when it is the body / itself? officer asks what / I wore that night & i think of my grandma’s urgent gaze / in macy’s. here is its root: we shop to find the look that might finally keep us / safe. if there is always a danger to outrun, praise the choice / of heels for the chase. praise the good shoe & the stature / it lends me tonight. praise the pomp & circumstance of ripping the tag off / a brand-new skin. my grandmother & I dressed ourselves out / of deaths already tailored to fit. if this is a sin, / I’ll take one in every color. so bless every tattered thread / of this love. bless the thousand shopping carts I’ve filled & emptied / communion of fabric gathered / at my feet. after we leave the mall, grandma asks me to say grace over dinner. I take bread, / & break it. say: / this is my body, taken back. I do this in remembrance / of me.
