LINGERIE:A GRIMOIRE SUSIE CAMPBELL

Susie Campbell

LINGERIE: A GRIMOIRE

TO GO FAR

For travelling into another body, the skin of horse or deer gives speed, stealth from the pelt of a mouse. Skin must be worn next to the skin.

Wrap the body in linen for other crossings. Bend metal fastenings to hinges, open hook and eye. Strap endurance and elasticity around the ribs for orbit. TO RETURN

Feathers must not be used for trim nor beetle wing. Only an upright garment ensures return to human form. The body comes back to its linen shroud, seeks its print in the ground. What is outside can be folded within, retracted gently or veiled behind silk and gauze. TO BIND

Lace up your enemy's inhibitions. Tight. Say this body is too heavy for its flight, or too porous. If leaky, it cannot be caulked. Lime and net its steel in flimsiness. Ban borrowed stockings and tie each body in its first gendered swaddle. Until it strangles. TO RELEASE Wear loosely or tie over the head in exchange for one with spots. If worn on the outside, burnish as a breastplate. Take ribbon for a bowstring or tie into a slingshot. Use Lycra© to pad up for Eve's inevitable fall, this sports bra for the apple's drop. TO DISGUISE

Hide a death's head under this balcony of bows, enamel scars with sheet lightning or the welder's arc. Play peekaboo with a garrotte and hang dirty linen over the wet butcher's block.