The Red Dress Poetry

I absolutely LOVE this piece of poetry - I love it for its complete lack of inhibition. I love the paradox: you hear the voice of a feminist but one who sees herself through the eyes of men; who is fearless enough to flaunt her desires but you wonder about the shallowness of her self-image; who wants to show how little she cares about men but finds it difficult to actually do so; who can start sentences with "I want" and end them with nothing more important than (or something as important as) "a flimsy & cheap red dress". Its about any/every modern woman in so many ways, don't you think so? Makes you wonder whether modern-day feminism is something to celebrate or deplore or both.

"What Do Women Want?"
by Kim Addonizio

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.