Rosalind Easton: a poem

Bra Fitting, Mayfair

I wonder if this might be Lingerie Oz:

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Marks & Spencer anymore.

Behind the cubicle's red velvet drapes

the fitter twangs the backstrap of my bra

like David Gilmour appraising the strings

of a charity shop guitar.

I think of Oberon and Titania's elves, who,

for fear, creep into acorn cups and hide them there –

the fitter checks the label, laughs, then straps me

into something she says is a moulded balcony,

but seems to be a blue silk dragonfly's breath

as engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Then when I read the size, and shriek with joy,

she swings me round to face the mirror –

and Coleridge, how right you were. For these

did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree;

the film critic who wrote of Lara Croft

in Tomb Raider a dead heat in a Zeppelin race

might well have typed those lines for me,

and if I have a child I can offend Nigel Farage

with what he calls breastfeeding ostentatiously –

this means sparkly nipple tassels, one assumes,

and a playlist of appropriate showtunes

("Defying Gravity" from Wicked, obviously,

or Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream") –

but, for now, there's only one song I need:

"Man! I Feel Like a Woman" by Shania Twain.

Let's go girls, she says. Well, yes. Indeed.

This poem is from Rosalind's award-winning pamphlet, Black Mascara (Waterproof), published by The Poetry Business in February 2021. You can find it here.