A Dress for Love

So I admit I tried it on,
the dress I bought intending to resell,
wrested from a rack at the outlet mall,
where it hid
crushed among the formal wear.

rejected,
a catalog return.

I tiptoe to the living room
and curtsey for my five-year-old.
“A dress for luuuuuuuv!” he cries,
laughing,
“You can marry my doggie!”.

I know I’ve got no business in this dress,
a dress for love.
White linen over silk,
with a sand-colored silk sash,
a beach bride’s dress,
the kind of bride I’d always hoped to be.

But in my room, I leave it on,
as if I could try love on for size,
something light and airy
that catches the sunlight
and seems to cast its own radiance
on everything.
 

Reviews

[M J Hutton]

This is top drawer, I love it.

[The Language of Birds]

I am back after a very long time, and do you know how much I still love this poem?

I am actually curating a virtual reality lit sim in the Second Life 3D platform, and would love to have this piece as one of them. I think it would fit perfectly. In case you want to know more, my blog about the exhibit is at http://thebeautifulcreatures.blogspot.com

I hope you are well, dear Elizabeth.

Your long lost friend,

Jim Churchill-Dicks

[The Language of Birds]

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you for asking me to comment further on �A Dress For Love� It is certainly worthy of a closer look. After I received your message, I have thought about the poem off-and-on all afternoon, and I came up with a couple of ideas, although I am tentative, feeling like I am rearranging someone�s already fragrant bouquet. Thanks to the digital age however, any petals that I pick can be easily put back into place, so, here goes:

Okay, false start on my part--

I was first going to put in bold all of your golden images, placed within the context of the whole poem, to give more of a visual rendering of what I'm suggesting, but the review feature won't allow that, so I will simply put down these images down, consecutively below:

So I admit I tried it on,
the dress I bought intending to resell,
wrested from a rack at the outlet mall,

rejected,
a catalog return.

I tiptoe to the living room
and curtsey for my five-year-old.
�A dress for luuuuuuuv!� he cries,
laughing,
and suggests I marry his stuffed dog.
I know I�ve got no business in this dress,
a dress for love.

Okay, I'm going to interrupt for a second. How do you feel about the verb 'suggests'? Does it fit your five-year-old's action? He's squealing with pleasure in the first part, which resonates with how my almost five-year-old would react, but then, as a reader, I'm looking for a verb that feels more age appropriate, earnest and puppy-like than the verb 'suggests'. Am I overprojecting here? Okay, back to your many golden moments:

White linen over silk,
a sand-colored silk sash,
a beach bride�s dress,
the kind of bride I�d always hoped to be.

What is it about a long white gown

a dress for the love
I haven�t got,
and therefore I don�t deserve

But in my room, I leave it on,
as if I could try love on for size,
something light and airy
that catches the sunlight
and seems to cast its own radiance
on everything.


So, there is my take on what sings most in your poem, and to me, there is a flow in the connective tissue between each image to feel like they were meant to flow, uninterrupted in this way.

A case can also be made for each of the lines I did not hilight here. There is an earnest tenderness in each of those lines. They are vulnerable, and are worthy of being said.

Or maybe they deserve to be unsaid and yet still understood by your reader?

To me, they are the words between the lines that I can understand by the virtue of your stronger images. Your golden images help me to 'get' what you were saying in these unhilighted lines. Leaving these lines unsaid also allow me as the reader to participate emotionally in your poem, allowing me to seek the speaker out.

At any rate, I hope this helps. I hope you get some feedback from some trusted others into this poem as well. I normally have a pretty singular vision, and I have come to realize that at my best, I have only a part of the correct picture.

Warm regards to you, Elizabeth.

Jim C-D

[The Language of Birds]

Elizabeth,

The core of this poem radiates a tender vulnerability which is truly moving. I read this poem the day it came out and it has stayed with me ever since, as I have tried to put words to my reaction to it. There is a childlike innocence married to an adult self-doubt that makes for true and beautiful images. I see a girl playing dress-up with a woman's wistfulness all wrapped up in one beach bridal gown.

Your five-year-old's personality shines in just the right place as well, and his innocent offer of his stuffed dog is both adorable and moving cause for an emotionally complicated response from the speaker. The content is beautiful with many great layers. And the line,

'But in my room, I leave it on,/as if I could try love on for size,

drew a heavy and sad sigh from me, and you had me all the way to the end.

On a technical note, I think that the poem as a whole is just about there. I think you have every image and phrase and line that you need. I wonder what you would think of the poem if it were about 25% more compact? (I know, i'm such a man... quantitatively measuring a poem about love. Like one of my mentor's groaned to me, "Straight men! You are all the same!")

But I wonder if you pour over every word and trust your golden images to speak for themselves without any unneeded exposition, that you may be happier with the result?

As always, it is a sincere pleasure to read your work. Your craft reveals a fierce, passionate (and gently self-depricating) heart.

Let me know if you have any questions, or if I can be a more specific help.

Great work.

Jim C-D