Dummies

You call them “dummies.” Images give form to the life within,
and names aren’t everything— they know more than you think,
these mannequins with wooden faces and plastic hearts.
One day they will break your plate-glass windows and march
with their feather boas and wool cloches
above nude shining torsos bent at impossible angles
unliving undead and not to be trifled with—
not-real women, not-real bodies inside not-real clothes
marked For Display Only. Arm in arm they’ll shout
and every shout will break more glass prisons
to be crushed to sparkling sugar
by the unbleeding feet of the vanguard crossing against lights
and tearing awnings to ragged banners. Not to wear,
and not because they don’t know they’re naked—
that’s how they were made after all. But these women
are done with rags, done with glass houses, done with
selling selling selling being sold
standing still being stared at being ignored
being on display being merchandise being backdrops for merchandise.
They’re on the move. They’ve left the background. They own
themselves.