By: Wendy E. Braun

We give our daughters dolls with perfect noses and silken hair,
painted lips and wide hips, they suppose are meant for
late night dancing.

A purple haze over eyes so large with glancing glints
a hint of Nietzschen wisdom blossoming,
like raindrops caught on broken bottles
sleeping on sidewalks in the early morning.

They run their thumbs across baby breasts
that rise from fat too young to spawn the growing,
while drawing puce perfection across the masks
of the marred identities they’re etching.

Our daughters trace on larger lips to plump to a prince’s passion,
without understanding the prestige of purple
that will come from his pushing and pulling.

They wonder when legs might match Dolly’s
so long and lean not knowing what we are forgetting…
Skirts that short don’t allow for bending,
while parts that pop can’t be rejoined
in an easy mending.

Eyelids that glance just so with a glint
of youthful sophistication,
lead to lost shoes, and city streets,
and backseat broken dreamings.

Our daughters cry when the waist is less than nimble
and the reflection fails to match that symbol wrapped in cellophane,
where afflictions are boxed and free from pain.

We give our daughters molded lies
and hope for something more,
while they paint on scant smiles
purchased on clearance
by a boy at the secondhand store.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: I work with children and have watched many of them mature over the years. Although I know that the day will come when they will struggle with a societal persuasion of beauty, I can’t but feel rather heartbroken when a ten-year-old wants to wish away the “fat” on her hips. There are some things that we forget over time, but even now I can still recall when I was teased for the chest that wasn’t, the baby faced reflection and longed to be the girl that was noticeably maturing. In retrospect, it seems there wasn’t much worth wanting what I didn’t already have within me.