A little light black dress
Quite simple and without manners
Was dancing on its own
At the bottom of the closet
Had around it
Only flannel waistcoats
Man shirts
And trousers just like it
It was, alas
Not at all in its place
Lost by chance
Between two suits
An anomaly
Yet so lovely
Suspended, fragile,
In this odd exile,
Virile.
Got to be said girls like it,
Little dresses that a trifle
undresses,
Little piece of fabric
Without which they would go naked,
Little dream where the hand or the gaze
Go astray,
Little black dress
Quite simple and unvarnished,
Little feather stolen from the strange
fineries
Of the angels.
The little black dress
Was telling its beautiful story
Its hours of grace
To the passing spring
When the cashmere
The leather jacket
reassuring and strong,
didn’t hurt her yet;
When a caress
Would turn her into a princess;
When it was going free
With all its fibres,
Before the passing
Of the first storms,
Before she was nailed down
With hazy reproaches
Jealous...
Got to say it costs girls a lot
The little dresses a trifle
undresses,
Little piece of fabric
Without which they’d go naked,
Little dream where the hand or the gaze
Go astray
Quite simple and unvarnished,
Little fallen feather
As a strange souvenir
Of an angel.
The little well-behaved dress
Was getting ravaged
By the offences
Debased with cries
Soiled with scorn,
It was used getting hit
The marks on its neck
The tears that glisten
In the corner of made-up eyes.
An evening of misery
Of ordinary hell,
Of vague rupture,
Of strapping,
It had been scratched
Torn, creased...
And then, really what does it matter?
Left in this way:
Dead.