Skirt Machinist Poem by Lesbia Harford

I am making great big skirts
For great big women—
Amazons who've fed and slept
Themselves inhuman.
Such long skirts, not less than two
And forty inches.
Thirty round the waist for fear
The webbing pinches.
There must be tremendous tucks
On those round bellies.
Underneath the limbs will shake
Like wine-soft jellies.
I am making such big skirts
And all so heavy,
I can see their wearers at
A lord-mayor's levee.
I, who am so small and weak
I have hardly grown,
Wish the skirts I'm making less
Unlike my own.