~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Twiggy painted her lids white,
then drew the lines~
black brushstrokes stretching
beyond the corners,
as if her eyes were always
mid-flight, escaping
the confines of her face.
A trick of angles,
the way those lashes spiked
like radio antennae
searching for a signal
in the static of the decade.
Every blink became
a semaphore,
a Morse code of mascara
saying look at me
without needing
to speak.
Every mirror was a protest.
Every kohl line, a rebellion
against the softness
they expected us
post war girls to wear.
We girls copied the shape
with shaky hands,
practicing rebellion
in bathroom mirrors~
sharpening our glances
into weapons.
It was never just about the eyes.
It was about new identities
we claimed with
our orbits of rebellion.
You may read the memoir vignette titled "Twiggy's Eyes" at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/remembering_twiggys_eyes_13651
women were curvy and applauded for it in the forties and fifties
In the sixties, they wore pillbox hats, and Jackie O tweed suits
Twiggy was introduced as the one we were to emulate soon after
she had measurements like my own twenty, twenty, twenty
she must have subsisted on a teaspoon of cereal a day
maybe two peanuts and a sprinkle of juice
I am sure she was not allowed a whole apple
this is when teens began trying to starve themselves
I know because I was one of them
thinking I was enormously fat at one hundred and eight pounds.
My girlfriend grew up in West Virginny
The mirror told her she was too skinny ~
So she ate like a piggy
Mirror laughed, ‘Bye-bye Twiggy’ ~
When she split the sides of her new mini
look at me Twiggy says
I am so thin
So doe-eyed
So young
So innocent
So slender
So svelte
Who wants to?
Size 14! - Not as fat as Piggy
But neither was she Twiggy
Marilyn possessed some pronounced curves
Made men's eyeballs bulge and swerve
_____________________________________
Marilyn Monroe's dress size courtesy of an
anonymous acquaintance on the Soup.
We could have boobs in the 50’s and 60’s
We could have a nice round bottom.
We could be Vargas girls, on our way to being
Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield.
That all changed in the wave of a twig.
Twiggy.
Skinnier than most twigs actually.
Svelte on its way to starvation.
She became the “new it girl”, the new look.
Karen Carpenter had never felt so fat.
She developed anorexia, which killed her.
Musical genius, now dead.
I blame that twig – Twiggy
And her manager
And those so-called glamour girls.
I prefer Vargas girls any old day.
This story is better
Then the Lady and the Tramp
It’s a doggy tale revamp
Maxi and Twiggy
Used to patrol the streets of Atlantis
Yep these two were the baddest
A bit more bad ass
Not your ordinary mutts
This is story of glory and guts
Nothing went past these two
Unnoticed and without an
occasional bark or snarl
Your ankles weren’t also spared
The postman got his share
Of your daily dose of neighbourhood watchdogs
One day something happened
Twiggy was fighting with Emily’s big dog
She was trying to protect her litter of puppies
Even if it meant she would lose
Her life or pride
It was her pride she lost
Her puppies were safe
But I noticed something strange
Twiggy was never the same
the fight she lost was too much
It is almost like she went insane
After that I never saw her again
Maxi lost her best friend…
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