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For Want of Red
“I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap
I want it too tight, I want...”
From Kim Addonizio's, “What Do Women Want?”
by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
I see men wanting a red-clad woman:
see-through-cheap red, backless
& sleeveless, breast-tight, cheek-taut.
Behind their ogling, no thoughts barred.
What ecstasy, peeling her ruby-ripe layers,
her glistening core color revealed. O!
to see the body in red slink past
“All You Can Eat” to “The Pink Pussy”
down the street; to nosedive into hard-
core fantasy, rock & roll in it. Hey,
in the thick of it all, they appear master-
fully cool — cucumbers that’ll escape
getting caught red-handed eyeballing
the eye-catcher. In the dogged pursuit
of red, each voyeur cocksure of coming
home fulfilled, no shred of red
showing — my old man, a looker
from way back, home to me, his post-
menopausal wife whose red faded
dress grows threadbare, eyes bloodshot
bawling over this most wearing state of affairs.
I look to my husband to redress despair,
hold me, at the very least, notice me.
He looks my way, turns away.