First Formal by Sharon Olds | Sunday, November 19, 2017 | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor
Description
She rises up above the strapless, her dewy
flesh like a soul half out of a body.
It makes me remember her one week old,
soft, elegant, startled, alone.
She stands still, as if, if she moved,
her body might pour up out of the bodice,
she keeps her steady gaze raised
when she walks, she looks exactly forward,
led by some radar of the strapless, or with
a cup runneth over held perfectly level, her
almost sea-sick beauty shimmering
a little. She looks brave, shoulders
made of some extra-visible element,
or as if some of her cells, tonight,
were faceted like a fly’s eye, and her
skin was seeing us see it. She looks
hatched this moment, and yet weary—she would lie
in her crib, so slight, looking worn out from her journey,
and gaze at the world and at us in dubious willingness.
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