DRESSED TO KILL
A kind of inverse vanity: she buys
ex-army combat gear in brown and green
as camouflage. It's baggy, twice her size
but she knows what's dead cool in 'Seventeen'.
She's dynamite, just like the magazine:
slim, self-absorbed, packed full of 'beauty' tips.
She ties a spangled belt round boyish hips,
laces her steel-toed boots, waxes her hair
sticks her tongue out between half-snarling lips,
admires the stud. Her tattooed arms are bare.
When she was nine, she went on shopping trips
with Mummy Dear dictating what she'd wear:
smocked frocks, white socks, soft curls with Kirby grips -
not like the other kids. They'd laugh and stare.
She soon learned not to cry ... then not to care.
The quickest way, she found, was to disguise
herself, pretend, plan, ambush and surprise
them all - now hardened, anorexic, mean.
Yet still she sees through alienated eyes
a small fat girl in pale pink crepe de chine.
