As you know full well a dress will not
determine how many single men will be
at a formal event or how gracefully you
will dance or who will ask for your phone
number or what topics you will discuss
with wit and intelligence or how well
your makeup will look under fluorescent
lights or if the glasses of pinot noir
and pinot grigio will be made from such
young grapes as to make you sneeze
before you can grab Kleenex from your purse
but this dress, the one, that floats to the floor
in a lightweight silk, tucked and pleated
at the bodice and banded with a narrow
floral design in bronze sequins and beads
can make you feel like Pollyanna
for weeks before the party. It’s your filmy
talisman hanging in the closet and the answer
to the world’s problems (and to yours),
the key to peace in the Middle East,
the one thing that can inspire love
and harmony between all living creatures.
It will melt the hearts of captains of industry
until they become priests, rabbis, monks
and Red Cross volunteers. Beauty will inspire
it all but you are indeed ridiculous for you see
there are a few sequins missing and the cat
has already snagged a hole in the hem.
You are already beginning to unravel
and you just bought it yesterday.
