Widow, by Victoria Gatehouse

Widow, by Susie MacMurray (UK). 2009. Click image for artist site.

Widow
 
Following the death of her husband, artist Susie MacMurray created a dress made entirely of pins.
 
You’ll find me glittering in doorways,
waiting, like a bride, to snag everyone’s eye.
 
As a bride, I stood through countless fittings,
knew the hopeful calculations of the measuring tape -
 
now I’ve taken shears to dreams, watched beads
of blood swell and break on the fingertips
 
of those who re-stitched the seams. Watch me
thread my way across the room. In my wake,
 
a shivering train, the clicking grief
of one hundred thousand adamantine pins.
 
From a distance they’re glossy with light,
lie like a pelt. Touchable. Come closer –
 
held in the smooth weight of each head,
a fleck of memory, the tight edge of a tear.
 
Victoria Gatehouse

This poem was first published in Mslexia.

Victoria Gatehouse is a Yorkshire-based poets whose work has featured in numerous magazines and anthologies. She originally trained as a scientist before working on her MA in Poetry from MMU. Victoria is particularly obsessed by the garment sculptures and installations of Suzie MacMurry who’s work she first encountered during a poetry course at Manchester Art Gallery. She has a pamphlet forthcoming with Valley Press and does voluntary work as a Library Ambassador for Calderdale.