Everyday Idol

This latest   deluge
is the complete collected
the unabridged   and      overdue
                  trapped between  vaudeville
and en pointe
                 on the tongues of the holy rollers.

It is the amnesiac's journal
I am finally waking up
                  over and over again.

 
This latest deluge
apres nous  forever
                  as one might write it on the beach
                  at Coney Island 
                  that contested space      in a contested city.

The flooded carousel
image sticks around     a little too long  

 
as in we are experiencing            this
                  as children                            or at least 
through  our toys             .

That offensive t-shirt that extinct frog
that healthful approximation  of a Malomar
that image of a black hole   …

 
it all stands for something
                  not metonymically but  as in
                  splashing around in the toybox

 
and finding a strange 18th century blade
to fall on
                  but calling it dressup.

 
Marveling at the blood 
because what else is there to do
                  but marvel?

I Need to Tell You

If underlying    all ecstatic beauty
               
is a ransacked benefit of the doubt

                  then of course this year's models have visible scaffolding
                  as an affect, a starchitect's selfie-fever-dream scuffed along the pavement       
                                     .  

Call it desperation but the Chemiserie took our bodies literally.

When "her" fits over her like a glove
or why the Plus Size model doesn't alter body shaming.

 
On the cover of Vogue eating a sheet cake and cackling at the haters

 
a social nod toward the dissonance within  the voyeur class
                  without capturing or changing                     
the way we understand ourselves
                  as important to, at the center of,   beauty.

 
On the subway I was a knockout.
On the postcards of me, someone wrote "Not Funny."

 
On the table is a picture of flowers that would transform the table.
Outside all hell is breaking loose.  The women confuse themselves
                  with market value  when we are off-shore and out-of-budget.
                  Duh ladies  going to a really good wellness center is not
it.

 
Another time the runway was shut down for anti-harassment training.
                  It's de rigueur ma fleur.   Mochaccino latte.

 
My anti-harassment training group read a story about men peeing
                  on a woman's belongings and writing "bitch" on her
locker.
                  Then a question, "Is this harassment?"
                  Duh guys  I can pee on your stuff too.

Teenagers watch a lot.
There are a lot of girls to watch these days.

These are the girls who have it all
                  (and then some).
And yet…something is wrong. So we watch.
What is it, my beauty, my feather on the breath of a long-lost goddess?
What makes you weep? And wherefor your waterproof mascara?

 
The teenage girl market.
The empowered woman executive market.
The find yourself in crystals mined in Madagascar market.
The syncretic market of a million times cutting.               

 
How do we sit still long enough?
The rising up of doubt, of benefit of doubt.

How do we trust that an alternative beauty      
               will come through just by not
               accepting this one?