Barbie Doll
-- Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/barbie-doll/
To Every Woman who craves that happy ending, good news: you can shoot yourself up now with a magic elixir that will burn you down in no time to a lovely size 0 -- suffocate your desire to eat more than a polite bite -- raise your 6-pack from the un- imaginable depths of post-baby weight -- melt you to a diamond shadow of your formerly "fat" self -- so that when you attend your 20-year high school reunion you will shine like an anorexic star (black hole) in the ranks of former friends, burn sharp as a bone knife with your arms around fleshy daughters, grin with the manic gleam of adrenaline and money, bikini clad on expensive beaches, immortalized and nearly divine -- blaze forever thin in the electronic mausoleums of Facebook.
Suggested soundtrack: Ravel’s “Bolero”
