Читать книгу Collected Love Poems - Brian Patten - Страница 20

Dressed you are a different creature.

Dressed you are polite, are discreet and full of friendships,

Dressed you are almost serious.

You talk of the world and of all its disasters

As if they really moved you.

Dressed you hold on to illusions.

The wardrobes are full of your disguises.

The dress to be unbuttoned only in darkness,

The dress that seems always about to fall from you,

The touch-me-not dress, the how-expensive dress,

The dress slung on without caring.

Dressed you are a different creature.

You are indignant of the eyes upon you,

The eyes that crawl over you,

That feed on the bits you’ve allowed

To be naked.

Dressed you are imprisoned in labels,

You are cocooned in fashions,

Dressed you are a different creature.

As easily as in the bedrooms

In the fields littered with rubble

The dresses fall from you,

In the spare room the party never reaches

The dresses fall from you.

Aided or unaided, clumsily or easily,

The dresses fall from you and then

From you falls all the cheap blossom.

Undressed you are a different creature.