To touch the catalog
& its staged interiors, the furniture

unaffordable, out of reach. To read
the product names, unfamiliar enough

to not connote. Cold that I liked to
stand in my closet with my best silks

grazing my face & picture a woman
pluck the cocoons from boiling water.

That I shaved myself to smell like a man,
to think of my legs

more like a strong neck buttoned into
a clean collar. I held greed to my breast

in the house of work & I held it
in the house of provisions. Like doors my sternum

opened. I was a sunlit room where I could
set down my voice, leave it behind.