Kate Spade Wallet – A Poem by Kristin Garth

Kate Spade Wallet

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.