Farthingale
       

In my pennyworth of windblown,
                        hurricane
        of lash and whalebone,

how often have I fastened its billows
                        about me
        sashed beneath furbelows.

Tight cinches the corset, tighter the stays,
                        smooth and tight
        for the bodice's lacings,

but my underpinnings upgust
                        from ankle
        to thigh to the untrussed

cyclonic eye of me. I'm the low-
                        pressure system
        sinking the barometer,

the microburst havocking
                        the weathercock,
        while I battened down to placid

seem, as a white-glove Sunday
                        in June.
        Like all tempests I say

hallelujah for the cage,
                        the isobars,
        the wickerwork and cartilage

within whose strictures wildness can wind
                        itself up
        to the shape of its binding.

It's the lid sets the teakettle rocking
                        at the boil,
        the shell's song the gunpowder sings.

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Copyright © 2014 Kimberly Johnson All rights reserved
from Crazyhorse
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission