>>7293208\Anything by Amanda McKittrick Ros
Don’t I see the old home over there at the base
Of a triangle not overcrowded with space:
‘Twas there I first breathed on the eighth of December,
In the year of Our Lord the month after November.
I’ve been told it was snowy and blowy and wild
When I entered the home as a newly-born child,
There wasn’t much fuss, nor was there much joy
For sorrow was poignant I wasn’t a boy.
I felt quite contented as years flitted on
That I to the coarser sex did not belong
Little dreaming that ever the time would arrive
That of female attire I would be deprived.
By a freak of the lustful that spreads like disease
Which demanded that females wear pants if you please,
But I stuck to the decentest style of attire
And to alter my “gender” I’ll never aspire.
During that hallowed century now dead and gone
In which good Queen Victoria claimed to be born
From childhood her modesty ever was seen
Her exalted position demanded when Queen.
She set an example of decency rare,
That no English Queen before her you’d compare
Neither nude knee nor ankle, nude bosom nor arm
Dare be seen in her presence this Queen to alarm.
She believed in her sex being loving and kind,
And modesty never to march out of line
By exposing those members unrest to achieve,
Which pointed to morals immorally grave.
But sad to relate when she bade “Adieu”
To earth and its vanities tainted with “rue,”
That centre of fashion, so French in its style,
Did its utmost to vilify decency’s smile
And mock at these garments which proved in their day,
At a glance-who was who-and wherein gender lay,
But alas! Since the death of our great and good Queen
That attribute “Modesty”‘s ne’er to be seen.
It wasn’t long after till modesty grew
A thing of the past for me and for you;
Last century’s fashions were blown quite aside,
The ill-advised folk of this age now deride.
The petticoat faded away as we do
In circumference it covered not one leg but two,
Its successor exposes the arms, breasts and necks,
Legs, knees and thighs and too often-the —.
