Before the cloche, she had grown new bone
out of the side of her right foot. This was due
to pointed-toe boots, her black suede shoes.
Until recently, she had been content to live
in a hotel suite, even through the windows
never opened. Oh those windows, squares
of glass squares above a patio scattered
with metal chairs cushioned in blue, gray,
and white, above a half-dozen palm trees
around a portal-shaped swimming pool,
above a parking lot haunted by white gulls.
And when her cellphone learned she’d left
the east coast for the west coast, it showed
her what she’d like to do outside her room:
hear a string quartet perform by candlelight
in the womb of a catholic chapel, or visit
the tomb of a decommissioned submarine,
or walk through the museum of cannibals,
myth and reality exhibited room by room.
The phone was right about what she’d like
to do, and the room was fine. It overlooked
a pool. Perhaps if the window could open
she would jump feet first into the deep end,
all four feet of water, then she would swim
from side to side, a rogue typhoon let loose
on a harbor. But the window stayed closed,
so she rested on the sill, her slim pedestal.
Soon she grew to hate that stupid hotel room,
her glass vacuum. When she saw her body cut off
across a glossy, lock screen, she chose the cloche.
She did it for the cellphone and the new bone.
She welcomed the dome with her eyes closed
like windows, her lips red, her head severed.