I’m Not A Model, and I Don’t Play One on TV
I watch Nicole Kidman on The Undoing, striding the streets of New York in a green wool duster, in a wine-colored duster, and I dream myself tall and slim-hipped, more skyscraper than fire hydrant, able to cinch the sash and have the bottom ends wrapped square and sweeping around my legs, not flaring triangular to the sides like tent flaps refusing to close. I watch Evan Rachel Wood on Westworld, marauding in her black leather motorcycle jacket, laced up the back, fit close to her body, and I dream myself small-breasted and wiry, more waif than weighty, able to zip it tight around my frame and look badass without a bulge to spoil the silhouette. Both women radiant, confident, their coats billboards, invitations to be noticed. My own coats are practical – tech fabrics with thumb holes for workouts, shapeless hooded raincoats for spring, roomy parkas for midwestern winters. My coats hide me, protect me. Practical armor for an inhospitable world. I watch toddlers in the snow at the park, bundled in their pastel hooded puffers. Bright little balls of energy, bouncing and rolling into one another like atoms in a super-collider. They make angels, pat the snow into clumps between their mittens, toss it in the air until it disappears. I dream myself young as I pull my collar closer. I dream myself invisible, a snowflake on the tongue.
In our dream band, on acoustic rhythm guitar:
Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her work has appeared in Salamander, Baltimore Review, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Waxwing, and other journals, and she serves as an associate editor for Rhino Poetry.
Ran Off With the Star Bassoon 