John Biscello

How come

no one ever

asks,

What are you

metaphysically

wearing right now?

Are you basking

in translucent skivvies,

rocking spangled self-awareness,

dream-dropping golden drawers

and grace-lace in multi-storied tatters,

are you so flagrantly naked right now,

candle-wax-drip in a homuncular beehive

on a Saturday night in heaven,

that you are rising, unleavened,

toward a new species of self-hood?

Are you clad in night-armor,

clank-stepping to the beat of your own private drummer?

Are you on fire, from the waist down? the neck up?

Is the tender, supple geography of your body

high-classing it three-piece-prayer style?

Is your invisible overcoat thick as chagrin

and molasses? Do you feel warm? safe?

Sick of existential hand-me-downs

which come from another time, another place?

Who exactly is wearing pink bunny slippers

from the dustbin of memory,

fuzzy brown sweaters

loved to a state of sentimental holiness,

sleeveless hearts exposed to scarring

and sun?

We live in a world of private parts

and cyclical makeovers,

and yet how rare it is

for someone to ask,

What are you metaphysically wearing

right now?