Worry Lines*

All hail to the new Miss America

With tantalum hips and bionic lips

Mouthing platitudes

She mistakes for attitudes

And says “Oh what a good girl am I!”

 

Back at the luncheon

In high dudgeon

The ghosts of Miss America Past

Feast on chicken breast

While having their own tit-a-tit

Conversation

Bent on excusing the present

And glorifying the past.

 

They know about the new Miss America

 

How she will kneel at an altar rail

Made from contracts suitable

For recycling in future altercations

Marked by alterations

Resulting in lonely people

Filling evenings

With protestations, invitations, registrations

Intimations

Fading into wistful recreations.

 

She will have rhythm and dance

In the dark

Guided by the reflection of the teeth

Of the also rans.

 

We will bring her into our living rooms

And see her toes tapping

Atop the six pack, pop-top, flip flop

Spirits for the dispirited.

 

    II         

 

Later that night

Alone

She removes her dress

And giggles with her gaggle of gleaming teeth.

She knows she is the pick of the American Litter

The Breck Girl

The Coca-Cola Crème rinse mistress

Of Mass media mind.

 

Gazing at her reflection

Wistfully

She is perfect

She is free

Tomorrow Miss Universe

By Galactic decree.

 

 

     III

 

A year and a day will pass away

Until she shakes her hair free

Of plaster of Proctor and Gamble

To slouch on a couch

Feet propped up on a coffee table

At a friend’s apartment in the Bronx,

Trying to sort out her life

to understand the spokes of the wheel

The spooks of the past.

 

Alone she seeks the kindness of the darkness

Hides from the reflections of the past

From the reflection in the mirror

 

Alone, trembling

She seeks the childhood memories

Becomes fetal

And sleeps.