I want it to be hot enough to wear my red dress. I want to feel the film of perspiration on my skin that comes when it's a sultry day. I want heat on my flesh, the tickle of air on my bare belly. I want there to be life around me, things thrusting themselves into the air, soaking up the sun.
"What Do Women Want?"
Kim Addonizio
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.
From Tell Me by Kim Addonizio. Copyright © 2000 by Kim Addonizio. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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3 comments:
What Women Actually Get
I bought a beautiful mini skirt
At a neighborhood Goodwill.
Black leather for the tight ass.
$1.50--a hell of a bargain.
It didn't fit then.
It doesn't fit now.
But one day, damn it, they'll bury me with it.
Okay. That's pretty funny/poignant, Sheryl. Have you read Eve Ensler's new book? The Good Body. From the woman who brought us The Vagina Monologues.
Are those ice cream cone breasts? Sorry, I digress.
No, I haven't read either. I gather they must be good or you wouldn't be mentioning them. :)
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