Elaine Equi

1953 / Oak Park, Illinois

The Objects in Catalogs

are made of light.
Well-lit or seemingly edible,
butterscotch and hazelnut light.
A bit vulgar, like starlets
the objects pose, pausing
as though in mid-sentence.
But really they are mute
— the story barely there.
Like children they wait to hear us
tell of the great Platonic love
we have for our many selves.
A vast literature reduced here
to a few short phrases: numbers
letters and of course, price.
183 Total read