Poem for a conventional lady

You wear a doll's face -- a powdered, proper face -- and hide your real self from prying eyes. Private Ellen. Prudent Ellen. Priggish Ellen. Your dress is modest, your speech, discreet, and your imagination, captive to hosts of ``shoulds & shouldn'ts'' tied up with shopping lists and dull brown string. If only you could spread bright wings above a field of milkweed and migrate with the Monarchs! If only you could walk on waves to reach the dark line of a far horizon, and then go on -- go farther yet! If only you could leave behind suburban ways and go to a place of bears -- where, like a wild, wild rose, you would blossom!