Andrew Collard
Fit Check
Define uniform: coveralls, dress blues, apron with pockets
functionally useless. Our bravest face, our gladiator drag,
second-hand khakis and a golf shirt stitched with the corporate
insignia of FYE or Coldstone. Everyday told to be decent, to lose
our shapes inside of what we didn’t ask for, selling movies,
serving food or cooking it, assembling a car we couldn’t afford
even with our discount, clad in bowties, straight-ties, nylons,
our scrubs in assorted shades. Somehow, we manage to make it
look so good, the broken-heel best intention, the scuffed jean
and secret hole-ridden sock we don as if in protest of
the daily masquerade. We clear away the leaves, scatter sawdust
on the schoolroom floor strutting in our worst vest, bodice,
government issue coat, embroidered. This, our first recital,
game face, our cover song pitched for someone else’s range,
the title that was never ours to which we must respond—
an inheritance, the disquiet that inhabits us by dawn or later,
post-shift, returning to find our children sunk already into sleep.