HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARBIE

Photo from the Internet

So, Barbie turns fifty

the day before I turn

sixty---something.

I never knew her,

never envied her perky breasts

her long legs, her blonde hair.

She came along too late for me,

too late to care about her and Ken,

her fancy little convertibles, her hot bikinis,

all those cool accessories--so fashionable, so fun.

She did call to me, a few years later,

from my daughter's toybox

where she'd been unceremoniously dumped,

but her smile? It never waivered.

Now, at fifty, the breasts are the same,

the hair equally big, the legs equally long.

Where are the stretch marks,

the crowfeet, the springy, graying hair?

How is her cholesterol? Her hormones?

Is Ken on Viagra?

Is her convertible environmentally acceptable,

good gas mileage?

Is she anatomically and politically correct?

There are one billion Barbies

currently in this world.

Indestructible--a nation of plastic hearts

cheerful, unbroken--poised to live forever,

be discovered by future archaeologists,

astonished by this tribe of long-legged goddesses

and one or two Kens.

- mimi