Dressing
(from The Birds by George Szirtes)

--

Out of the dark a torso, more garment than flesh,
the weight of invisible breasts behind the high
empire line and twist of cord; empty and fresh

as air. It is just waiting for you to try
the outfit on for size, to become woman
and fill it out without pondering the why

and how of it, to step into the common
form-hugging sheath and gracefully undertake
the obligations implied by such things. No-one

goes naked in the world after all. For whose sake
do you become who you are? Are you alone
in the dark? Is it for yourself you ache

in the morning? Even if you were stone,
like a goddess, you would desire beyond
your fixity something already half-known

yet negotiable. As a child you respond
to the adult’s gravity with a blank stare
of instinctive hunger. You touch your blonde

hair and bunch it in your fist. You prepare
your flirtatious look. You play at control,
then lost, start crying at the small despair

you’re stuck with. But this is the soul
prepared for you, these garments that glow
in the dark and burn as fierce as coal.

and out of the same dark step the slow
suitors in their allotted garments, unsure
of their own identities, hoping to follow

the patterns they’ve guessed at, a mature
untroubled roundness weighing at their hearts,
and the breasts press against cloth as if nature

insisted they do so, as if there were darts
piercing them, as if becoming were all
in the hollow waiting garment that closes and parts.