Validity

The Plaid Dress
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colorless this dress I wear?
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence; high judgements given here in haste
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncolored than unmade
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair
Lining the subtle gown ... it is not seen
But it is there.