You’re a beau idéal wannabe; that’s what 

people have been calling you all your life. 

But you don’t believe in words like “beauty” 

and “ideal.” They don’t suit you at all. 

These are words for the other women, 

the women of endurance, the women 

who carry on without complaint. The women 

of a different time. There is no dignity and 

there is no victory in the subservience.

So you enter stage left. Eyebrows, nostrils, 

and ears. The meter is perfect. A sudden 

sub sternum terror like an epiphany. 

Nothing but this voice, this music, and song.

Feel the chaos, the wave, the tempest.

You are the quotidian we oh-so-carefully handcraft 

into art. Let me hear it, you say, let me hear it. 

Men on stage, the way they make it musical,

Women on stage, redefining the acoustical.

Let me hear it. Not just the music but the 

movement of the music, the math of the music. 

You tap that hollow point roving big toe, and 

as you squeeze, you feel the powder sift.

Those androgynous figures, their imperfections

Their body type and manners, like the map and

the key to the magic, they’re hard to know.

But the truth is, you stopped believing

in beauty a long time ago.