Lady Godiva Reveals All

Day 30: 'write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend, as in  Claire Scott’s poem “Scheherazade at the Doctor’s Office.”'

Final day! A mixture of relief and disappointment - I shall miss these challenges that wake up the brain and take it down unexpected passageways, but I must admit I'm feeling a little weary.  For today's effort I'm choosing to write in the voice of Lady Godiva, a body positive role model if ever there was! 

Of course, I wasn't actually naked.

Do you really think I'd parade around Coventry

Without a stitch to cover my embarrassment?

I may have been cross at Leofric's greed

In overtaxing the good people of that town, 

But even to fulfill my side of his extraordinary bargain

I wasn't about to expose my tender rump

To the coarse swaying of my horse!  

I wore a secret garment fashioned from the finest silk, 

Dyed the colour of my pale, highborn skin, 

Cunningly sewn by my dear seamstresses 

To fit my frame precisely.

It was quite revealing, all the same, 

And showed off every imperfection - 

You don't have as many children as I have

And still retain a slender figure - 

But with my hair let down from its hundred pins

I thought I'd look the part. 

Just the same, it was decreed that all along the route, 

Townspeople should stay indoors, 

Windows and doors shut tight, 

No gaze should fall upon my noble figure as I rode by.

On the day appointed to complete the bargain  

I slid tender bare feet into the iron-cold stirrups, 

Feeling feather-light with no jewellery to mark my rank,

My second skin concealing my gooseflesh,

My hair draped demurely across my breasts.

A strange hush hung over the deserted market, 

Only the clip clop of my horse's hooves

And the slightest soft swish of silk could be heard 

Until a gasp came from the tailor's window. 

Thomas, that cheeky man, could not resist

The urge to sneack a peak. Some say he turned blind, 

My magnificence the last image forever etched in his head.

But that was just a story, put about by the court;

Thomas had his hush money, to keep his mouth closed, 

And my modesty intact.

What no-one knows, for I have held it close until now,

Is how I felt as I made my way through street after street,

The sun warming my body, 

The cool breeze rippling through the silk.

It was such a thrill, so deliciously liberating,

I almost wish I had been naked. 

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