Lily Ladewig

Mad Hatter

1. To be mad as a hatter is to be rimmed
2. in mercury. Today we wrap these
3. potentially toxic hats in plastic
4. and stamp a skull-and-crossbones
5. on the brim. Used mercury to make mirrors
6. too, archaically. Spoke not of nonsense
7. but with gunmetal gray in the throat.
8. Trapped the screaming inside the skin,
9. suggestively. Velvet-like. The treatment
10. is the same of the hat or the hatter.