JUST LIKE MARILYN MONROE

the girl can’t help it;
cuter than a bug’s left earlobe
bright as a bowl of buzzing cherry jello
deeper than a flat flying saucer
she’s eye-poppingly parabolic
she’s heart-grindingly hyperbolic
she wears it all on the inside scoop
she’ll win it all without even trying.

the girl can’t make it
on the crooked outside
without an inside man
to play her straight and true
to shower her with hard-won stash
to bathe her pain in diamond stoles

the girl won’t buy  it!
she’s out to own
the farm, the field, the cows.
she wants to be elected queen of the board.
she won’t bake bread.
she won’t deliver milk.
she washes her husband’s words of will
down the kitchen drain
with the lettuce leaves and coffee grounds.

the girl couldn’t take it.
they found her-
a persecuting pack of paparazzi
found her
taking an eternal nap in her birthday gown,
choked on a surfeit
of chocolate-covered quaaludes.
her selfless ego
beaten bloody-mary blue
by the angels of stardom.
her last murmured words;
regret that she wasn’t still fishing
for tips and wolf-whistles
at cece’s truckstop in secaucus.
back there she was a nobody,
but back then she was real!