(Week Seven) Improvisation #5 of Form

of Claudia Emerson's "Womanless Beauty Pageant at the Volunteer Fire Department"

It was cheap and easy to pull off, the men
scouring their wives' chests of drawers and closets

for knee-highs, garter belts, brassieres, petticoats,
and bathing suits---anything made from polyester,

spandex, anything with give at the waist,
before sending their wives to the Goodwill for wigs

and high heels, Just before the show, the women
would make them up, tickling with blush, eyeliner,

and lipstick, heavy on the reds and pinks,
Deliberately talentless, then, they sang

and danced, paraded on the makeshift stage
they'd built in the firehouse, baring veined,

coquettish legs, hairy bellies---the audience
hysterical, the women's laughter rising

past mere amusement despite themselves, despite
the restless what on earth these men had put on,

those dresses they'd rather burn than wear again.


My Improv':

I was a man once, in high school. I wore a dark gray
pinstripe and thin crimson tie. Black dress shoes, reasonably
spit-shined for such an occasion. The mustache penciled
perfectly at my upper-lip. I had pulled my hair taut
with an unforgiving rubber band and gel, this gel meant
for untamable kinks. But my cousin swore by it. And she
was right, not a single strand misbehaved while I
modeled the halls in drag. Some students squirmed
in their chairs beside me, afraid it was catching.
But their reactions were due to something bigger, I knew.
This unescapable country and small-county living, with its
own set of (hicktown) philosophies. It was the simple fact
I volunteered myself to be a man for nothing
that they couldn't understand or stand.