An Old- Fashioned Stunner
 
She is straight off the pages of 1970s Paris Match.
Catwalks towards us with model-girl carriage.
Echoes of Stevie Nicks in her boho hair.
Youth and nature have bestowed the beauty
the rest of us attempt to counterfeit with makeup.
A silk shirt-dress glissades to the knee,
promising full breasts and long legs.
No practiced selfie pout, instead she
smiles back at a life that smiles upon her.
 
Suddenly I droop under the extra stone
run up like a bad debt over the summer,
curse my curls for fluffing like a Pomeranian in this heat.
She’s beautiful I say, always willing to pay beauty its due,
Your usual diplomatic; I didn’t see her,
revised to, must admit I did notice.
Your words graze; I am too old now for an ugly duckling transformation;
just the cheat of the surgeon’s knife or the aesthetician’s needle.
 
Then I recall a friend, photos about her house
boasting she was once a Julie Christie ringer,
whose oracular advice to such ripened girls is Enjoy
before motherhood and menopause have their wicked way.


Fiona Sinclair


If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Fiona Sinclair  would be pleased to hear them.