January Poet: Kim Addonizio, Pt 1

I didn't do a great job with December but that's ok, we'll revisit Emily Dickinson later this year. Meanwhile onto January 2011. Kim Addonizio was born in Washington DC in 1954. For whatever reason, she got smart and now lives in Oakland, which while it isn't Sacramento, I can say nothing negative about because I have relatives living there. That was quite a sentence wasn't it? Anyway I love her poetry. It has a lovely edge to it and I'm always thinking, yes, I agree! when I read her stuff.

Some of her books include What Is This Thing Called Love, Lucifer at the Starlite, and Ordinary Genius. The poem below was the first one of hers that I read and it's still my favorite.

What Do Women Want?

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.