Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/C-B_P5uLAic) 4.7.2021.
Abwehr Agent F-7124
Fashion is made to become unfashionable.
- Coco Chanel
Who doesn't know the woman of the little black dress
the dress for all women of taste?
Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably
and they remember the woman says Coco Chanel.
That simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance was once my every fashion mantra.
Coco says Before you leave the house look in the mirror and take one thing off.
It is always better to be under dressed.
Always assess the accessories she says take one thing off--
just one bracelet just one ring just one strand of pearls
or maybe even the scarf because too many additions will subtract.
Then I remember reading about Coco's covert work for the Nazi
military intelligence during World War II.
She was Abwehr Agent F-7124.
Now I look in the mirror ready for any outing &
I add one more bracelet maybe two another ring
that garish purple scarf.
About the Author: Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Rise Up Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art,UCityReview,Moist Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, and elsewhere. Stephanie K. Merrill is a retired high school English teacher. She lives in Austin, Texas.
