The Former Beauty

I. Ready

The former beauty turns a few graying heads

as she enters the bar.

Her skirt is tight and she’s still not wearing underwear

because her mother told

“always be ready for him.” And she is,

though her husband hasn’t touched her in months.

She waits,

folding her hair over and over

with her hand.

II. A Coup

The former beauty is tan again this summer,

blonder, and able to get into her thin jeans, too

At the veterinarian’s office

she sits with her golden retriever,

absently stroking his head and ears.

The young vet emerges to scan the waiting room.

His gaze pauses in her direction,

a dancer suspended at the apex of his leap, and moves on.

III. On the Street

A beautiful young man sits on the curb

outside the grocery.

The former beauty thinks for a moment

he might be a boy she dated a few times in college.

Oh, but that was more than twenty years ago;

this could be his son.

Unnoticed, she watches him from her car.

He is waiting for the girl

with the blue tattoo

carelessly pricked onto the flawless skin

of her left shoulder.

IV. Shopping

The former beauty keeps her eyes down as she pushes the cart

so no one knows she is moving her legs around a longing

she no longer believes she deserves.

No one knows she’s watching

snapshots of his wrist, his shirt sleeve rolled back,

exposing a scrape from something in his life,

about which she knows nothing,

and the other thing, so palpable, impossible.

She lowers herself onto him,

but even in her mind her body is ridiculous.

In produce a boy stacks bananas quickly.

The bruises will develop once she gets them home,

once they ripen.  This boy.  If she asked him

would he run?  Stare and breathe through his mouth

in disbelief?  Fear?  Would he smile?

She has no idea what is possible any more.

She picks up avocado, palming the wrinkled skin,

and eggplant, rubbing its smooth purple.

She holds an unwashed grape in her mouth.

Maybe she could ask someone.  Casually.

Ask someone about whom she cares nothing,

what is possible?  And read the answer

in his careful pauses.

V.  At the Reception

The former beauty is seated at the extra women’s table.

Silently

she slides her thumb under the heavy necklace of rose quartz,

lifts the beads to her lips,

and marvels at the warmth left from her breasts.

VI.  At the Mirror

The former beauty pulls at the sides of her face

and realizes she’ll never wear flowers in her hair again.

No longer possible, the fair Ophelia,

mad with love and beautiful in madness.

Now she is Ophelia dredged,

puffy and pale,

no longer in love.  Or mad.

VII.  In the Yard

In her fat nephew’s cast-off shorts and tee shirt

the former beauty weeds the front flower bed.

The cool breeze brushes the sun’s heat

from the back of her neck.

The sedum is the last thing in bloom.

She cuts her hand on a dry daylily leaf,

sucks the blood.

A car of teenage boys drives by.

They honk, yell something.

She waves with her injured hand,

assumes she must know them from somewhere,

and returns to the day’s work.