it's as if my body has not heard, or hasn't believed

Then low in a fancy shop window, near my
anklebone, like a Hermes heel-wing
fitted with struts and ailerons,
fragile as a silk biplane, the soutien-
gorge lies, lissome, uncharged,
slack as a snakeskin husk. I stop,
I howl in seventh-grade French. The cups are
lace net, intricate as curtains in a
bee's house, in a kitchen where honey's
on the stove, in the mouth, in the pants--and there are pants,
in eyelet appliqué, and there are gold
pinions like brushes of touch along the tops of the
poitrine--and it's as if my body has not
heard, or hasn't believed, the news,
it wants to go in there and pick up those wisps,
those hippolyta harnesses, on its pinkie,
and bring them home to my ex and me,
mon ancien mari et moi. It's as if
I'd been in a club, with him, with secret
handshakes, and secret looks, and touches,
and charmeuse was in the club with us, and
ribbon, they were our wing'd attendants--
and satin, and dotted swiss, they were our
language, our food and furniture,
our garden and transportation and philosophy
and church, stateless state and deathless
death, our music and war. Everyone
dies. Sometimes a beloved dies,
and sometimes love. Such far worse happens,
this seems it should be a toy lament,
a doll's dressmaker's dummy's song,
though people are often murdered, to celebrate
the death of love. I stand, for a moment,
looking down, at the empty costumes,
of luxury, the lingerie ghosts of my sojourn.

[Sharon Olds, 'French Bra', in Stag's Leap]