A doll’s face with human eyes
And ribs removed to make her thin,
The bust line broad, the waistline small.
We see her as a Mattel toy
That lives, that moves, that has her being,
But she is here to feed our whims,
And we indulge her fantasies.
We lust or laugh, scoff or scorn,
We share the snapshots giddily.
And I am seeing lights of lights
Beneath false lashes and dark paint
And I could cry for pity’s sake
For she is me, and I am she.
Yes, there but for delusion’s sake
Go I, desperate in face and form
To reach a beauty makeup caked,
A plaything for a million minds.
Is it an astral plane she seeks,
Or is it lust for innocence?
Is that the paradox of life?
We crave the thing which we contort.
And on the cruel coin’s other side,
We relish freak shows, circus stunts.
We gape and goggle at the souls
Whose bodies are, to us, one corpse.
See twins trapped in each other’s flesh,
See bearded women, muscled men,
All photo negatives unfurled,
Transparent, colorless, obscured,
So feast we might upon their ghosts
And bake our bread from air, not wheat.
And soon it bleeds beyond the ring
To mocking every twisted form
Of crisscrossed eyes and shriveled limbs,
Of ill-grown bones and swollen face
We say ‘we see’, and blind ourselves
And still it journeys, poison-licked.
We mock the minds of tortured pain,
We castigate those we disdain,
We banish those with stench of sores
Deep dug into their wounded hearts
Who need our needing and our love
And suffer through their inner night
And come out scarred and shivering.
We turn from that which pleasured us
As soon as any human pang
Is wakened, and calls on our aid
For it reminds us of the claim
That binds us all and makes us share.
For shame, for shame, we cast it off!
For shame, we’ll have none! And so we do.
For we mock our merry way
Unto Hell’s teeth, for lack of love
And lack of sight that every soul
Is kissed by all eternity,
And sparkles rarer than our gems.
We see the glimmer of our snows
In department store array
And foil wrapped in glimmer gay
But now the holy thief is out
And stalks the night to rob our scales
That we might see Him, eyes to eyes
In the eyes of those we left behind.