Lace Trimmed Petticoats

something light and fun after a few weeks of heavy material

Sometimes, I wish I had it in me 

   to just go sashaying down the street

  in lace trimmed petticoats, gathered at the side

             white gloves upon ladylike hands

                feshly manicured toes in 

   the latest fashion of heels,

              a bustle and demure top,

     hair style neatly coiffed and 

         falling just in that way-

reined in and evoking visions of rainbows

     and butterflies in hearts of men 

         with every delicate footfall

        and understood by you women,

               nary a stray thought of ungoodness

        to worry anyone´s pretty head,

           least of all my own. 

I would bestow blessings like a lamb,

    smile prettily and bat my eyelashes 

         at biceps and mustaches,

       give deference to children

           and rescue stray kittens on 

               every trip to the grocery store,

     shyly raise my skirts to the 

         smooth white knee

              when negotiating the price of a cab.

Alas, I fear early childhood grass stains 

    never wash out of some knees, 

         and hair never tames into place again

 after some women gallop stallions bareback 

           across open meadows 

              on mountaintops. 

I fear neither my mother nor I

  ever wore virginal Confirmation white

      with any sort of aplomb. 

       

Author's Note

to the person whose review I removed, who rated me a 0/100 (the ratign remains, of course)

I sure hope that you got some satisfaction out of feeling so damned superior to me. Glad I could stroke your ego today.

Reviews

[Emily B]

my good white petticoat is all stained on the bottom, i need to do something with it, i generally eschew the hoops and laces and gloves and bonnets for corded petticoats and work dresses, i find the furniture is safer

do the clothes make the woman? i think sometimes they do

my oldest wore a dress to the rotc ball, she was a knockout, but she drew the line at heels and make up, that was just too far

maybe i should cut that petticoat off and add some lace :)

[Marie Anzalone]

This was, for me, a total romp to write. I was never comfortable in skirts until 3rd year of college when friends helped me discover Ren-Faire and the wonders a corset could do for the world's flattest bosom. I now can do the skirt and even the make-up thing, and have a brown velvet sequined bodice gown that hugs my curves in this wonderfully snsual way that I will totally rock again for the right man one day. But manicures? Batting eyelashes? Tamed hair? I fear there are some aspects of femininity for which I will always be a total outsider.

I tend toward the extremely practical as well, though I will admit a secret passion for black lace.

My advice? Yes, we do need to feel lace whisper against our laegs and arms sometimes. I say totally upgrade those petticoats. It is time. it took me a long time to learn that it does not detract form our intelligence to indulge that side a little.

maybe I will consider a pedicure one day, too, just to say I did it once and the world survived.

[Emily B]

my feet are rough from going barefoot, i don't want tame feet with pedicured toes . . . i just can't get excited about it

[Marie Anzalone]

By the end of every summer, I can walk across hot gravel with no pain. I mourn that day in October when shoes become mandatory, revjoice on the first spring day when I can squish in cold mud again. :-)

[Marri]

hah, I find it witty and masterfully done. Very rhythmic, moody and written with style. Those who can write, write.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Marri- I am very glad you saw the humor in this. I appreciate you stopping by today.

[Marri]

you are welcome, pleasure is all mine

[J]

Reminds me of Lady Godiva on her horse...

Interesting use of language here, very Victorian (and well-placed).

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, J, so good to see you back around. Glad you enjoyed this.

[h d e rushin]

I saw Kate this morning, blushingly pregnant, gestering with her hands, mauve stockinged legs.
Then I remember the weeks that drug into centuries prior to my own daughters birth.
The agony in the house I couldn't stand. And then the water breaking and the howls that I
would later decifer as bombast boasting, the artless announcing of the arrival of another human.

Say petticoat to a man and a picture of female self assertiveness arrives. Coyness. Shyness.
Ladylike.Perfumed. It's strange how the mind can bluff and frighten by pretense or a mere
show of deception.

You have great range.
My wish is to have great range also.

dana

[Marie Anzalone]

I fretted and despaired about my own bizarre and non-coveted femininity. In grade school, I aspired to popularity, and never had enough patience to learn to do it right. Some tree always needed to be climbed instead. I fretted over the fact thart no living breathing male homo sapiens would ever look at me long enough for the whole marriage and procreation thing.

Luckily, I have doscovered the matriarch, mother to all, and now at least have developed some sort of fallback plan.

I understand childbirth is probbaly even more terrfiying for the man than for the woman. Have been seriously thinking I should probably walk that path alone, too, before it gets too late.

You do have great range. Spiders and sea voyages and gardeners. Don't sell yourself short, my friend.

[h d e rushin]

grade school and middle school I need to forever forget. But in high school I would become
somewhat popular, although opinionated, and finally the senior class president. An office,
I must add, that got me a date to the prom with the homecoming queen, but little else. And
you are so right about the childbirth thing, having being totally grossed-the-hell-out and then
feeling my legs turning into lego's and the lights and the smell a concoction of foreign particles
that the male species is just not prepared for. But I was told that all went well and she will be
home from college in Atlanta in just a few weeks to visit me.

and remember, nothing except desire is ever too late......dana

[Marie Anzalone]

homecoming queen as prom date? you totally rock! I do so hope your visit goes well. What a fascinating slice of your history you offer here. I will keep in mind what you say about things being too late. Been a little busy around here as I just accepted an adoptee... a former student intern... for the summer, working with us and staying with me here. What a blessing to have a young perosn in my life again!

[caesarkreshen]

feshly! You have a way with words, but you're right... too light for me. Maybe a few heavy words that are weighing down sentences. Aplomb comes to mind.

I do like the word coif.

[Marie Anzalone]

I ams miling, caeser... if you like heavy, of ALL of the work I have posted in the past 2 months, you seemed to have honed in on the only one that is not. I figured even my most loyal readers were planning to revolt on me if i did not cut it out.

glad you at least enjoyed this a little. ;-) I have some of yours tucked away for reviewing on breaks over the next few days.

[caesarkreshen]

I liked the title, so I came to review. I am superficial. I mainly wanted to tell you about feshly. Sometimes when I see typos I wonder if they are, in fact, words I don't know, so I google them.

[Marie Anzalone]

I am the world's worst typist, and that is helped by the fact that the nighttime lighting here in Guatemala is dismal. Glad a happy accident brought you to me. I take the Bob Ross approach; let's call mistakes, "birds."

[caesarkreshen]

I just omit words altogether when I type, even in my notebooks. It is so strange because I read it like they are there then, years later, I realize they aren't.

[Marie Anzalone]

YES! I wonder if I do nto have some late-stage dyslexia setting in, because it takes me several passes to realize when I have made transposition-style typos. I assure you I am tpyically a fairly literate and even intelligent person...

[caesarkreshen]

sure ya are... haha. Nah I understand though.

[Cool Handless Luke]

That's the gift you have of making ordinary, non existent characters and portray them in such a way as to give them life and make them real in the hearts of your readers. Nice work as always Marie!

[Marie Anzalone]

LOL Jeff, I gently disagree. This one exists; she is just buried somewhere I cannot find her. Soemthign about that whole deference to men and children thing. Maybe I'll practice batting my eyelashes at you? Naw, thinking about it, probably better for both of us if we just go fishing for catties instead. I've got a great pair of mud flats and some stained old jeans that I can roll up the the knee.

[Leica]

the charms of southern women are special indeed.. i may not wear a petticoat but like the idea of some pretty heels and a swirling skirt ... but like your poem says, i look at these skinned knees and know pants are it :-)

enjoyed this light-hearted piece..thanks for the smile!

[Marie Anzalone]

LOL so I live in a Latin country. When you go to any major shopping center every third store is sellign plastic wares and bargain electronics. And every other, I kid you not, is a shoe store. We have a small two story mall in the center of town; there are 15 shoe stores, all with fantastical creations of high heels. And here I am with knobbly toes and strurdy sensible close-toed shoes; heavy practical skirts, feeling like a man dressed in woman's clothing or some such. Maybe some day someone will domesticate me properly. I am almost positive that only someone with the ego and sense of humor the size and scope of a Latino's, or Black patriarch's, or of a recluse; will be able to do it, though. ;-)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is really fun...these are real women, real people in this poem...with aspirations of walking down the street like southern royalty...let's just see what they would make of me! says the speaker...and others are so damn judgemental...

i like this flaunting of reality, right in their faces...get real...those who are judging...they have their own grass stains, i'm sure.

[Marie Anzalone]

glad you got the lightness in this, jacob. it is always a little disconcerting to me to see my mom dressed up; just as it must be for her to see me the same way. I recently defended my thesis in a wrap-around uber-practical heavy ethnic skirt and a ladies' suit jacket. Every now and then I try to dress up the grass stains, and am trying to feel less inauthentic doing so. This was totally poking fun at myself when I wrote it in my mind, strdiing down cobblestone streets and stepping around drunks on the sidewalk with a practiced no-nnsense gait. Readers' reactions, though, indicate to me that it went elsewhere, too, which is ok. I will let it have its own life and meaning. :-) Thanks for stopping by to read this one, jacob. Lovely day to you.