Beautiful Lady

The prompt for my writer's group this
month (and I can't make it anyway)
was to complete the sentence:
"I am beautiful because..."

I am beautiful

because

my mother said it,

or my father,

or another man?

Is there an absolute

or are we talking relative?

Some natives know that

beauty means huge drooping earlobes

but at some address, it is golden tresses;

at still others, ebony. Straight teeth

or lots of curves, a certain weight

(which differs greatly in the world,

the target, Cinderella’s shoe of pounds or grams

abounds in ads and articles that tell the

mindless masses

what is beautiful this year.

A teen, I read a book whose

character said, “Every woman is

as beautiful as

some man thinks that she is.”

It made a big impression at the time.

And then I had to talk myself into

another truth to fit the circumstances,

so I didn’t think that it depended all

on me. A man who wants your love

will tell you anything.

A man who truly loves you

sees the beauty of so many things:

a smile, a sassiness, the eyes,

the way the hips sway back and forth,

and he is blinded to the faults

that (honestly) exist in many

forms and fashions.

I’m beautiful? You bet I am,

and any woman who knows love,

(but even more than that, she loves herself)

will say the same. The scars and sags

and imperfections only add more

interest to the eye of someone keen

on knowing everything about you

(which includes the woman at

the center of the conversation, too).

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2017