Dress

A poetry friend posted about words that are endangered of going out of common usage, you can read Gary Longden's post here and the full list is very amusing. As soon as I read it I thought of the first line of this poem and had to write it. I think the reader can guess the meaning of  the words from how they are used but see what you think after reading the meanings on Gary's post.

I would look this angry if I had a
corset forcing my body into a fashionable
S shape
Potrait of Madame Paul Poirson
by John Singer Sargent

Dress

The trouble began when I said that from now on

I would only wear tea gowns.

His shoulders set, he put down his knife

And stalked off to sulk in his growlery.

I cannot help it, I long for loose folds and drapery

That can move with my flesh,

Rather than the constraint of the corset,

The binding weight of the bustle.

We argue in whispers of what gossip will come,

People will say his wife is lost in a widdendream.

He touches the edge of the transluscent fabric.

I know what he thinks;

Only his eyes may look at my body

Wrapped in fabric that light can seep through.

My mind weaves through the embrangle

Of rules that demand I must be contained.

Brooding on the muliebrity of womanhood,

I remove my choker and throw it at him.

I love this picture so much, how affronted
the fox looks under her feet.
Symphony in White, No. 1 by James MacNeill Whistler, 1862