Kate Spade Wallet – A Poem by Kristin Garth
Depression, black, the Kate Spade wallet pushed
down deep inside my Barbie pink Coach purse.
Its zipped, compressed plastic essentials,
smushed
identity — an empty paper curse
of days in pocket, tainted currency
transacted from a toxic world. Two gifts
my mother gave me, the accessories
of womanhood for days when bodies lift
their skeletons from silk designer tombs,
wear leather, pastel cheerfulness that masks,
beneath lipsticks, a cadaver exhumed
decomposing in sunlight while you bask.
When subterfuge of suffering is art,
you see just pink not the black, buried heart.