Three-in-one sonic beauty device

Alyssa Perry

I’m made unbidden      a present of not“supersonic”      as I texted Cox      though if I applyto my cheek       its soft bristle brushits bristles in circles around      circles      if I circlethe      face if I endeavor to massage      transparent its meadowdecorous its purely decorative meadowextract yellow-gold budded bouquets of oiland instructions      also music      play throughthe scouring brush      head whatshould I call these concentric buffs      that buffer“Party for One” into play     but super-fluous     the body forgotten again      this devicecalled “clarisonic”      echolocative promise      a clearancethis living face      won’t get      eventuality yet like      the cloudcatching no light in its passage      to dirt      the cloudwherein repeat selfies hover      undealt-withabove      catching no dust      immaterial at $2.99a month      a small fund seeding      the community-supported server farm      atop thigh bonesThe screen crisscrosses out      a spire of rainbowcast through the window      the outlinesnotice the waters rise      the rain gonethe reflective surface      need not pause—      a nimbusof images singing      O of me      have I triedto withhold judgment      re beauty      but a truer formof discernment      divests from the recklessholdings on of a past      where I was severallyclocked in the glass room looking at      the bronzebas-relief of three goddesses     before ParisI could not distinguish     between the threeposing      one of a trio      of jokesthe first goes      Renoir: I don’t either      another whetheror not     trained to ground     can you distinguishbetween clouds?      all the same say you areasked to     select from amongpower conquest love     you decideon love     you want to call it      loveturns out     the opening     of another frontFor your options      try to tell them aparttry to tell     which one you areor take cover            in presentimentclear the future      of heaven is      immaterialas ever caught up in     the question of     vantage &whether you are     whether you aren’tthe future of heaven     though without groundwould like to get out     of the clouds     to fulfillsome form     to abandon     try to     find in thisa trinity     let clarisonic’s virtue     the cloudstand in for a clear sound     say beauty cloudsthe devices      the cloud-devisedbeauty     or Beauty devising the cloud     in mea cover      a three-to-one      I flow throughthe connection between     the face circlingthe clearing     total occludingthe dissipate nimbus     the sound ofwhich surfacing

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Headshot Alyssa Perry

Alyssa Perry is the author of Oily Doily (Bench Editions, 2024). Her writing appears in Annulet, Coma, Fence, Mercury Firs, and elsewhere. Perry is an editor at the small press publisher Rescue Press and poetry editor at Cleveland Review of Books. She teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Cover of Oily Doily by Alyssa Perry

"In Alyssa Perry's alchemical Oily Doily, lyric opens its throat at the vanishing point to pose as vision's dubious double—I see the eyes—and assonance offers up its juicy fruit, its noosey loop. From its "clarisonic" prelude to its Solarian terminus, Perry renders optics as orbit and icon, both the limit of human presence and the interface where immanence still might knock. Fizzy, fatal stuff."
—Joyelle McSweeney, author of Death Styles

"Razor-edged, stagger-rhymed, Oily Doily is a diamond saw. Its music is intricate and remorseless as its subject: empire, centuries of bourgeois kitsch, 80s flicks, tech strip-mining our curiosity, sympathy, and desire for solidarity. Miraculously, the work doesn’t fall for despair but offers clarity within clarity, glittering surfaces within aqueous depths. You’ll emerge from this debut wire-crossed and Perry-pilled. After a hundred pages, I’d gladly read two hundred more."
—Joe Hall, author of Fugue & Strike

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