ODE TO AN ACTOR'S LIFE  (Well- that's Elaine's take...I'm not sure I'd use that for a lead in...but what the heck...it's a different point of view)

By Diane Frank

Kymberleigh Richards, former publisher of Crosstalk, recalls when a twenty-something gent with a set of Lexus keys who was ahead of her in line at the Thrifty Drug turned and said "You're not fooling anyone, you know." Kym replied, "Good. That wasn't the point."

I've had a response of my own for this sort of situation, and I turned it into a poem a couple months ago:

He stood ahead of me in line at the checkout of the drugstore,
softly jangling the keys to his BMW.
Turning my way his eyes possessed me as only a man’s can.
Smoothly calculating the divine ratios of reproductive success.
Something was wanting.
Was it my thick waist, insufficiently constrained,
My hips not padded enough,
Something unnatural about the swell of my bosom?
Perhaps my shoulders or the thickness of my neck.
Or maybe some faint dark stain that the cheap primer
and paint on my cheeks could not conceal,
showing my glossy red lips to be too thin,
my jaw too strong.
And my eyes, lined and shadowed
that could meet desire with desire - too bold.

Dropping me in the remainder isle with all the other goods that don’t sell
he still insisted he owned the facts of my existence.
“You’re not fooling anyone, you know”
“I know,” I replied. “The sad thing, is that when I’m dressed like you
I fool everyone, all the time”