"What Do Women Want?"
posted by StoryBroads
on
Sunday, June 24, 2007
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Poet Kim Addonizio isn't waiting until she is old to wear what she wants. And it isn't purple! This was posted by Rosie O'Donnell (another outspoken woman) to the excellent Poem of the Week site. http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2007/
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
So . . . is there a defiant outfit in your closet? Or one you are mentally choosing for yourself?
Patricia Potter
Tara Taylor Quinn
Maggie Shayne
Anne Stuart
Suzanne Forster
Lynn Kerstan


















3 Comments :
Oh, my god! That is the most wonderful poem in the whole world! I have to find more of her stuff!
Man, I love it too! What a great poem. More like a manifesto.
I have some defiant outfits yes, but I don't have the butt--or the courage--to wear them, lol.
Of course, that could change.
Suz
What a fantastic poem! I love it. I get so riled when fashion experts tell women what's "age appropriate." All my outfits are defiant. Most of them anyway. Torn jeans that hang too long and have flowers painted on the legs, and sequins. Tight little tank tops. T-shirts with mouthy phrases on them. Stevie Nicks clothes, with lots of fringe and draping gauzy fabric. Sexy things. Young things. Noisy things. I have a black leather purse with a pair of working handcuffs for the strap. And in my =special= closet, I have damn near everything Victoria's Secret has in stock, and a good portion of Frederick's line as well.
I am nothing if not an optimist.
Maggie
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