BRIDGET JONES’S BIG PANTS
The spectre of a dead Mark Darcy is a souvenir
Of three films that went before this one,
In which the last happy ending is undone
And now Bridget is on her own, with children. Enter Roxster,
The most irritating nickname and his youthful torso, Bridget’s age
Being a challenge to his self-perception. He reminded me that when
My marriage to an older man had ended, my next love was at least
A decade less, but my destiny did not include him either.
In Marks and Spencer, choosing knickers and bras
For my new husbandless life, just as Bridget junked her big pants
For something less containing, I collected an assortment
Of black lace, leopard print, underwired, over-the-top,
See-through and silky underthings, and waited like a loaded camel
In the till queue to find that behind me stood a long-married friend.
In her hands she held half a dozen plain white cotton underpants.
She looked at mine and I looked at hers, strangling a comment
That would have made something of her married whites,
My divorced blacks, her cotton, my lace, my hope, her experience.
Bridget Jones did find her other man, hidden in plain sight,
And I found mine.
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