Dry Cleaning / Alterations
by M.C. Childs
Snow or Sun, on 2nd and Starlight, the sign spins.
Jackets or shorts, there is always laundry.
Inside, the garment carousel spins dark suits, phosphorescent
white shirts, a color wheel of dresses in cellophane.
The wrinkled man behind the counter
who has been there since the dinosaurs
takes your wrinkled clothes, your wine stains,
your embarrassments, drops them down a chute,
gives you a smile, a wink, a hint of ataraxia,
gives you a nine-digit number on a rectangle of paper.
The exiled Altairian knows his buttons—
knows your inseam, your hindarm seam
but tailors and their covert couture
are shunned in most of the Milky Way.
Alterations of sapients’ germlines—letting in,
letting out pleats, folds, tucks—
requires informed consent, but tailors judge
that their judgment of fit and finesse is best.
The tailor knows the town that doesn’t know him.
He mends and amends your dirty laundry,
makes his cuts, his stitchings and starching,
balances proportions, lines, essences.
There is nothing like putting on a fresh-pressed shirt.
M.C. Childs’ poetry has won awards from the SFPA and appeared in multiple magazines. Professor Childs is the author of the award-winning urban design books Foresight and Design, The Zeon Files: Art and Design of Historic Route 66 Signs, Urban Composition, and Squares: A Public Space Design Guide.
