New York Barbie Wonders

Lime sherbet against black? – she hoped that someone
might just make her clothing’s colors smack of life
today: in some extraordinary way! And yet Manhattan
winter days conveyed a kind of softer glory whose
rewards demanded, she began just barely now through
her tight-coiffed and pink appurtenance of head
to understand, a subtler story: every time she went for

glitz, the city seemed abruptly to resist – strange,
she thought: New York with all its clamor – and its rep
for glamour – but her hot pink tulle, electric crimson voile,
and glossy purple satin all looked out of sync – did not
do justice to this pearly air of late December’s brink:
she wondered what of her innumerable bright adornments
and accessories would keep her from obsessing over –

yet more loss. She was a Barbie doll after all, a plastic
toss of latency, a temporary dream of little girls: two pointy
tits – a painted face like 1950s vamp Anne Francis –
and a hunger for a whole lot more than Ken. Sitting
stiff-legged on a window sill – left again, bereft, by yet
another fickle pair of hands – she wondered what the color
was for happiness – how would she get it? – when?

.