Beetlebung and Kettlehole--April Poems

Beauty Pageant on TV

They burst forth
into the light,
disguised as choices
for shape and looks,
butterflies dreaming
inside a gilded night.
In their half-open eyes
winds and tides,
many a road, many a track,
a sunlit life.
The young girls strut
at the cusp of womanhood,
as this old one watches them
on TV, thinking,
when it matters,
at the end, the judge
will probably be a man.