What is the subject matter? What is the author’s audience?
What is the authors purpose?

For Southern belles who scour shops
for ballgowns not mirrored
in bridge and garden club circles,
the holidays are a blur of invitations
The women flock to Montgomery Fair
for alterations--tucks here, gussets there,
and deep hems. Not even mannequins
are a perfect size 8. In the whites-only
fitting room, Rosa "Yes, Ma'ams"
each glowed lady, then returns to the Singer,
dizzy from the social whirl she tastes
vicariously through customers bidding her
to drape flawed figures with chiffon
Yards of silk, satin, velvet slide between
needle and treadle Beads and sequins,
like missed chances, slip through her fingers.
Thirty days till New Year's Eve
then five months before cotillion
For a few weeks, empty racks and room
to breathe: no giggling debutantes,
no gossipy matrons with coffee-stained teeth,
cigarette breath and syrupy drawls.
Tired of Miss Ann, Rosa anticipates
quitting time, the glow of Christmas lights
and the long ride home. She removes
her thimble, knowing that a hoop skirt
can pass through the eye of a needle
easier than a colored seamstress
can hold a seat on a city bus