WOMEN ARE CONFRONTED DAILY BY MULTITUDES OF BEAUTY, IMAGES IN MAGAZINES, MOVIES, ON TELEVISION--THE SHEER QUANTITY OF THESE IMAGES HAS INCREASED DRAMATICALLY OVER THE LAST TWENTY YEARS
caption under mirror images of lips, lashes, teeth, fingernails
In these silver
squares, nothing
isn't perfect.
Something small
and comforting as
night lights
makes me think
how even at 13
the 3 way mirror
in my grand
father's store
only slammed back
what was too
broad or sagging.
In the beauty
salon without
the blur of my
hair I feel
naked, vulnerable
as a woman at
Auschwitz,
stripped, all
skull. While I've
pared away flesh I
don't need, like
something Shaker,
my hair's taken
off on its own,
like skin leaning
down, lower, as
if to listen
to what earth
whispers