by Jim Ross
Halstonette
for Roy Halston
Am I off-the-rack
ready-made
an entourager?
a knuckle flushed with
jade
aquamarine
emerald
under glass?
am I nostalgique?
from Roy’s boutique
down to a hip
sent through
in fragments
on a whim/sketch
put through paces
right on back to Italy?
am I transition?
day-to-night
end of 20th century
seismic shift?
in deep regalia
am I a slavish ounce
of chat to chit?
am I all the flecks of a mirror ball?
a powder pinch in Chelsea bars
swanning in a thick stock
a keepsake guising
as pandoras box?
was I dubbed
ultrasuede and ultrasuave
muse, fuse or garbaje?
the fifth of six beauties
entering a club
linked to the Lord
of Madison avenue
a trope within a troupe
an abstract mannequin?
was I the stuff of sneers?
the washed-up-has-been-who-never-was
done-with vine and leaf
and filigree?
did I die with disco?
did it die in me?
will I be vintage?
a smart navy turtleneck
a rack of sharp silhouettes
doomed to exude heydays
with a belt buckle
and an acute sense?
could I be infatuation?
fleeting, flying glitter
leeching prima donna
on my knees for grace
jonesing for one descriptor
in that style bible baby
was I the Severus saint?
holding on to a party that never started?
or
was I the let-down?
Elio Iannacci is an award-winning writer, poet and a long-time arts reporter for Maclean’s. He has written for more than 80 publications, contributing to periodicals such as The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The National Post. Some of his most notable profiles include Sophia Loren, Barbra Streisand, Lady Gaga, Joni Mitchell and Beyoncé. The Writer’s Trust of Canada recently asked Iannacci to be a juror for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize, a literary award dedicated to emerging LGBTQ+ authors. His poetry has been published in the Toronto Review of Books, The Seersucker Review, Exile and OTP.
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding public health research career in hopes of resuscitating his long-neglected right brain. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in the past six years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and photography in over 175 journals on five continents. Publications include 580 Split, Bombay Gin, Burningword, Camas, Columbia Journal, Feral, Hippocampus, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Lunch Ticket, Manchester Review, Newfound, Stonecoast, The Atlantic, and Typehouse. He’s published photo essays in Kestrel, Litro, New World Writing, Sweet, and Wordpeace. He’s also published photo essays using old postcards in Barren, Ilanot Review and Palaver (forthcoming). Jim and his wife—parents of two health professionals and grandparents of five—split their time between city and mountains.