Poetry Sunday

I remember a joke I heard long ago about a fellow who picked up a girl at a club and took her back to his apartment. As he told his friends the story the next day, "She started taking everything off. First she took off her dress and the high-heeled shoes. And then the false eyelashes and the makeup. And then the hair extensions and the press-on fingernails and the padded bra ... and all of a sudden she just disappeared!" This poem by Andrea Cohen isn't about that sort of truth in advertising, but it's a clever look at the kind of woman most of us wish we might meet ...

Truth in Advertising

by Andrea Cohen

If we'd moved her,
she'd still have 'em,

the ad for Acme
Moving says, with a photo

of Venus de Milo.
But who, intact,

would Venus be?
Some standard-issue

ingénue. Give me
a woman who's lived

a little, who's wrapped
her arms around the ages

and come up lacking: that's
the stone that can move me.

I prefer being moved by ladies with arms, of course. But you knew that already.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo