I read the headlines on my 81st birthday,
body covered from neck to ankles.
To cheer me up, my husband emails me
photos of me at sixty-five frolicking
on the beach in bikinis when I was a size six.
But I feel worse as I picture those bikinis
being worn by teenagers who shop at Goodwill.

I check out Martha’s nudie photo. Big letdown.
I expect to see the Queen of the Kitchen
and Insider Trading Jailbird pouting
and posing like Marilyn Monroe, had she lived
to be 81, in an apron wrapped around her waist
baring breasts, belly, and legs, not a stranger

with salon styled and dyed blonde hair,
thin arms sticking out of an apron tied
around her neck looking bored and lifeless
as a mannequin at Macy’s and holding
a coffee cup and cut off at her whittled
waist by a display of Pumpkin Spice Coffee.

I want this woman’s skin smooth as syrup,
so I click on the site that says: Martha
Stewart shares a Vitamin C serum
that keeps her skin selfie-ready. There
she is smiling and she is the Martha

Stewart I remember. Botoxed, face lifted
and air brushed. Clearly not the face
of an octogenarian. I don’t order the serum
but smear my face with dollar store anti-
wrinkle cream and hope for the best.


© by Sharon Waller Knutson.
Used with the author’s permission.