Orla W.

Actually, a correction; this is a day late, the previous poem was two days late. By my time. But going by the website, I'm still reasonably on track with this one. I also remembered the theme! I'm on a winning streak.

Epithalamion.

Good luck, good luck, good luck, my girl
Or whoever’s girl you are.
Kiss the old and blue,
You lovely borrowed something new-
For you have come so very far
To be someone’s "she'll do".

Well, I didn't stick to the prompt, because this had been lurking around my head for a while, but I quite like it.

A Girly Subject, Anyway.

Well, I will wear my waistcoat
And I will slick down my hair
And I will hide my barely B-cups
Even though they’re barely there.
And I will write and write and write
I will never cease to type
I will pick myself a man’s name
And work all through the night.
Because otherwise, I analyse
With my biros and my bottom lip well-bitten
All the blank and angry poetry I’m sure is terribly well-written.
I sit up late and ponder
The words of some bloke six foot under
Who writes about women sometimes. Big hand for him.
He’s usually in love. They’re usually thin.
Sometimes they’re dead. Female bodies are a favourite
Honoured and admired and honestly quite worshipped
And lovingly coffined up in similes, served with a side of metaphor
Always someone's subject, because we fought so many of our own great wars
And Sassoon ever noticed. And the boys studying English Lit
Couldn’t relate to our tiny daily deaths and our enormous lives
Too big to fit in just one line, too painful to rhyme
Because our lives don’t.
And the times will change and churn, turn and give rise-
- to another boy's poem, for a another clever girl to analyse.