Skirts - a tritina

This skirt was once a go-to item chez nous.

Mall hopping has never been my favorite sport. I don't like the game of upscale, upsale, trendy, latest-thing marketing. I loathe traipsing through shops and shimmying in and out of sale shirts and pants with anti-theft tags. Don't offer me discounts and store credit cards. Don't hover over me with your pearly whites and your headsets. Please just show me the way out. However, air drop me in the center of an unfamiliar town and I'll find the nearest resale shop and select my year's wardrobe in under 10 minutes. I'm funny that way.

Last week I found myself in H&M with a friend and our two tween daughters. We were debating the pros and cons of this season's skater skirts. Are the fitted high-waists and short flared A-lines cute or frumpy? Playful or risque?

I went home thinking, "Who the hell cares?" and wrote this poem.


Skirts

The skirts this year are rather short.
Girls' legs seem longer than last year—
sleek muscles on view. Take a look.

Why is it every time you look
the world spins faster? Breath grows short?
Blink and forgo this current year.

Watch. Skirts will be longer next year.
They'll retreat to a modest look.
Fashion and wiles are fickle and short.

In the span of one short year, the look changes around you, without you.

"8 Ways to Wear a Skater Skirt!" image credits: Teen Vogue

The poem is in the form of a tritina, which is like a sestina but shorter (like a skater skirt!) and composed of three tercets that end on the same three rotating words and roll and flow like waves (or like the hem of a skater skirt!) and a final line that contains all three end words in any order and acts like a coda.