Poem Written for the Occasion of My Fiftieth Birthday or Poem Written for the Auspicious Initiation into the Invisibility Club

I remove all underwires from my bras 
then bend them into hearts and moons 
use them like rebar for miniature cities 
made from common household items 
such as regret or pluck or as a key 
for the lock to enter the door 
to invisibility and yes my breasts 
are still proud but ghostly tits under 
a ghostly shroud how they haunt 
the dreams of every ex-lover under 
the cover of this sheath I walk 
among you and buy pants with 
elastic waistbands until everything 
expands my soft belly the reach 
of my life stretched before me 
to a shore still too far for the eye 
to see in the drugstore mirror 
I spot silver in my hair like a seam 
of precious ore running through 
this crown of unearthly brown except 
no one sees it but me because of my 
(dare I say?) delicious anonymity I could 
blow in the ear of a man under forty 
and he would only hear a stirring 
breeze I could try to catch his eye 
but his glance bounces off or skitters 
by some say Harry Potter’s magic 
cloak was made from the skin 
of a woman past her prime it’s my 
time to shine as a white glow moves 
through the orchard after dark until 
a chill tickles the nape of your neck 
and yes you could bounce a quarter 
off this ass but I am passed have 
The Cure sing of my demise or crank 
some Gen X anthem to senora 
ephemera taking up space between 
the rain play haunting music 
for madam phantom seen 
through as a windowpane. 

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Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry. Letdown, released in March, was selected for the 2020 Marie Alexander Series and published by White Pine Press. Her collection, Boy With a Halo at the Farmer's Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize and was published in 2015. Her chapbook, American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press/Coal Hill Review chapbook prize. She lives in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College and edits the Rise Up Review.