Blue Nightgown Poem by Tara Teeling

Blue nightgown, you’ve served me well.
With your delicate white flowers
and flirtation with maidenhood,
you gave me many nights
of womanly repose.

They told me how they loved you,
that you made me look deliciously
enticing; I kept you close
on hungry, lightning-charged nights,
a scrumptious tart in a florid,
ribboned box.

Blue nightgown, you were short
and sweet. On breathy December
eves, you did nothing to heat me,
yet somehow I slept soundly,
feeling safe and perfect-porridge warm.

With the sweat of July midnights,
as you kissed and hugged my shape,
I still felt the breeze and its
light freedoms, as I glistened
and simmered under the moonlight.

Blue nightgown, you puffed me up
and bore me intuition.
As you guided me through the bedroom
I learned to fill the waiting hearts,
and how to let them fill me.
In you, I was tall and lithe,
moving balletic, like
a careful, cool gazelle.

But…

Now, you seem smaller,
less lush with your pretty,
pure poesy, and the buttons
are hanging by the
thinnest of threads.
My legs are now rounder,
like spongecake, or suet,
or pink water-filled balloons.
Your power bleeds
its colour all over the floor.
The spell has puddled
at my feet.

In you,
I lumber and shake,
simper and quake,
fading like the flowers
that once made me bloom.

Blue nightgown,
you don’t fit me
anymore.