Trousseau (Poetry)

I kept that white seersucker négligée so long
that it went yellow —
its synthetic content turned
a sickly, disenchanted shade, a puckered shadow
of its once-romantic self.

Saved thirty years, swathed in polythene
and boxed, tissue-deep in despair,
Time dated it as virgin, past its prime
and, spurned, it faded to a ghost
of plans doomed from the outset — dreams stillborn.

Unused, grown stiffly spinsterish,
discoloured nylon lace edges cuffs and hem,
a scratchy, crumpled shroud for a forgotten love,
so nearly worn.