Kate Durbin

Doll Disrobed: Notes on the Culinary Nature of the Taking Off of Clothes From the Womanbody

Like cooking,
unclothing is an art—
to be done with gusto!
With sensuality.
.
There are many layers
of skinfatmusclebone
in the womancarcass.

Each layer must be accounted for in the assorted ingredients.

Note:
Femaleflesh consists of fat,
mostly.
.
Step One:
Untie sheer cape from nape of neck.
Peel skin carefully so as not to rip.

Step Two:
Soak slutty tube top made from spandex.
Boil fat in hot water.

Step Three:
Hack denim hot pants.
Tear muscle from muscle.

Note:
Under no circumstance
should the sex be uncovered
until the three preceding steps are completed.
.
Step Four:
Mince rhinestone-encrusted panties.
Chuck (don’t chew!) her bones—they’ll break every one of your teeth.

Note:
The audience, by now, ravenous.
.
Step Five:
Serve her up.
.
The nude femalebody
is a strip of paper
at the bottom of the serving dish.
.
Remind the openmouthed
that all paper was once tree.
Nippleshairscars—
symbols carved
into bark.
They’ll remind you
as they reach for knife and fork,
that for as long as they can recall
the forest has been fat with trees.
Herbody is anybody,
and would you please pass the salt?

Kate Durbin's first full-length collection of poetry, The Ravenous Audience, is forthcoming from Akashic Books. She has a chapbook, Fragments Found in a 1937 Aviator's Boot, available from Dancing Girl Press. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Drunken Boat, diode, elimae, and elsewhere. She lives in Whittier, CA.