Becoming a Legend: Lament of the Mink

Of the Great Lakes Mink Association
BlackGlama band, my litter’s natural life
was “nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes). But,
pick of that litter, I was shipped to New York
wedded into a black-brown coat, deep soft
with silver guard hairs. Full swirl skirt,
gathered at the waist. Lined with satin.

I tried to work my way up, but was marked down.
Mildred, who bought me at Alexander’s
in the Bronx, forbade her family
to reveal my discount origins. As Alger says:
“If you’ll try to be somebody, and grow up
into a respectable member of society, you will.”

Oh, weekend nights in 1960’s New York!
Golden chandeliers rise to the opera-house ceiling,
theatre scrims lift, ballerinas pose on point.
Then on to Sardi’s cloak-room, shooting
the breeze with cashmeres, ladies’
perfumed hankies wadded in my pocket.
In the circle of the coat-check’s arms,
pressed against her breasts, whistling Verdi—
the moment “given to desire.” Out
of the steamy restaurant into cold air,
swaying above high heels, night
a sable pelt glittering with lights.
In 1972, I was appraised at three thousand.

Then came darker decades. Our kind no longer
elegant, but immoral (“Fur is Dead”).
Sometimes spat on, I weighed Mildred down.
Twenty plus years in the cedar closet,
then the basement, jammed into zippered plastic,
threatened by mildew stink, moths.

Today, I am being shipped to Moscow. Auctioned
to the highest bidder on eBay, sold for three
hundred and fifty degraded American dollars;
what can I do but sigh and quote Pushkin?
“Our days still linger, slow and rough.”

At least in Moscow, women still appreciate fur.
Soon I will see and be seen, as dusk
settles over the river, crystals of falling
snow gleaming in my darkness. I will learn
the words for warmth in yet another language.