Chemical Beauty

by Sarah Jane Souther

Chemical Beauty 


Those plastic lips promise improvement 

They say they’ll quiet that other siren
in the soul, 
whining and pernicious, 
Those lips are delicious—
the voices won’t let you go
 
Toxins drip from metal tips
to erase expression lines and 
numb your feelings 
with something other 
than a bottle of gin 

until the promise of pretty and prettier 
becomes better than any lover
whispering Beautiful
over your cellulite
and your wrinkled forehead

Anyway, 
these days they’ll tell you, 
Men like that are a fantasy 

And here instead is 
the advertising machine selling addiction 
to just one more thing
where the best version of you 
lies on the other side of
the knife and the needles

The technology is new
but the tale is old

Can you see it now,
the old woman at the door
with the corset, the comb, 
the apple 

She whispers delicious,
herself a slave to a mirror
on the wall 

---

xoxo

SJ

---