"The Latent Motion of Mannequins" by Ross Balcom, Frequent Contributor

The Latent Motion of Mannequins

Ross Balcom

1.

The mannequins: frozen Eros

in the shop window.

 

I had to do them.

"Here comes Papa!"

I smashed the window

with a trashcan, and then

I was all over them,

hammering them with my

pelvis. "I'm fertilizing the

void, the plastic void!"

Know me mannequins;

feel my fire, blazing.

2.

The men in blue arrested

me and brought me here.

"You can't jail my passion,"

I told them, seething.

You can't jail my fire.

It's spreading, spreading.

An army of mannequin

women, unfrozen, march

to free me. Millions of them,

their feet pounding the earth,

 a vast rhythm rocking

the streets, toppling buildings,

bringing down the walls

of this jail. "Come to Papa!"

A force unstoppable,

all-powerful, manifest

now and evermore. "Feel it,

feel it! Released at last:

The latent motion

of mannequins!"

Poet's Notes: We've all been exposed to stories about dolls and mannequins that come to life. Recently, while walking through a department store, I "saw" a mannequin move very slightly. I recognized this as a perceptual error, but the experience was still unsettling. I decided to write a poem about mannequins-in-motion, and this is it.