BEAUTY
TREATMENT
Embalm
my face said the failed suicide
smoothing
on anti-wrinkle crème
and
peering through stiff lids
at
the red-eyed mirror.
I
can't be serious about death,
but
is life serious about me?
Is
it just decay that won't give up
and
life's a gravel path to old age?
Keep
on weeping on the bathroom floor
at
night and creaming
the
creases out of one's neck
afterwards
with moisturiser.
The
end will come the same.
Soon,
but never soon or soothing enough.
Whisky
and Valium bring sleep to crinkled brains,
but
headaches and time-warps in the skin
are
not simply smoothed away.
Ruth Hartley 1976
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