Dishing Dido

Face Lift
—for Dido Merwin

“Writing is a self
that requires a
perpetual face-lift”
—Steven Gould Axelrod
Sylvia Path: The Wound
And the Cure of Words

Good news—for Dido!!!
She’s a born-again—Bitch Queen
Peeling back—the white bandages
The nauseous—wrinkles of the years
Three marriages—full of worries
She got so sick—of lime-green
Frog-husbands—such petty jerks

Now she’s pretty—as Cleopatra
Fizzy with Demerol—high as a kite
Beauty is back again—leaking out
Of every pore—of her lovely face
She feels precious—again knowing
No stretch marks—giving away the
Secrets of her—barren existence

Everybody raves—about her new face
She feels years younger—when she smiles
The stitches tighten—she thinks backwards
She’s twenty again—lounging on her
First husband’s—honeymoon lap
Years before—her lovely poodle died
Now in a vase—on the mantelpiece

Her new face—pink as a peach
Smooth as a—newborn baby’s ass
Only Sylvia's—curt smirk-face poet
Dishes Dido—from Court Green
Dares to say—out of the blue
That her rival looks—better as
Miss Havisham—widowed old nag