The Number She Wore Instead (Coco Chanel)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You grew up
in an orphanage
run by nuns
who dressed you
in the same
grey wool
as every
other girl
and the grey wool
tasted like
the damp
starch weight
of a woman
whose name
has been chosen
for her
and you spent
the rest
of your life
choosing
names
for everything
yourself
starting
with your own.

[Verse 2]
You cut
the corset
out of the century
the way
a surgeon
removes
the thing
the body
no longer
needs
and the body
stood up
straighter
without it
and breathed
deeper
without it
and the century
looked down
and could not
remember
how it had
ever
worn
the thing
you had
just
cut out of it.

[Chorus]
The perfume
was a number
because
a name
would have been
a leash
and you
had spent
twenty years
in a leash
already
and the number
smelled like
the clean
aldehydic chill
of a woman
who has decided
that the bottle
will carry
a number
and the number
will carry
nothing
except
itself.

[Verse 3]
You collaborated.
That is
the sentence
the century
does not know
where to put
and the century
is right
to not know
where to put it
because
you lived
at the Ritz
during the occupation
on a German
officer's arm
and the arm
was warm
and Paris
was cold
and the sentence
has no good
place
to land
and you
never
explained it
and the not
explaining
had the exact
weight
of the grey wool
the nuns
had put
on you
when
you were six —
a garment
chosen
by someone
else
that you
wore
without
comment.

[Outro]
The corset
is gone.
The little
black dress
is still
in every
closet
the century
built
after you.
The number
is still
on the bottle.
The collaboration
is still
in the sentence.
The scissors
in your hand
cut both ways
and always did
and you
held them
anyway.

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