spoken in the voice of Natalia Ginzburg

The first thing to go is the neck.
That’s where it starts: gravity pulls,
the grave extends its reach, yanks at the tendons,
strings them out, distends the flesh.
The cheeks give in, drop to the jaw, become jowls.
Jowls, you say, my father’s jowls.

This is the turning point.
No spring left to resist
dust’s desire to make more dust.
After this defeat, the rest follows:
bust and butt racing in a cavalcade
to the finish.

How you had laughed
at middle-aged crises, assumed
your horse-face
would spare you the pretty girls’ ravaged
future. Calmly, you awaited the change,
superior in your plainness.

Manly, your brothers teased. Brutta.
You cried and prayed for delicacy
to visit your coarse features, soften
the nose, round out the chin. You wanted
wide-set eyes like Athena, gray-blue
and fine. Not the two hunks of coal

that burned even closed. In vain
you hushed your deep voice, hid it
in a whisper, developed a shy laugh,
plucked your bushy brows,
grew long nails and hair.
Your brothers were not fooled.
When the time came you’d shuck the pretense,
embrace the man within, let him
save you from humiliation. A masculine
triumph over menopause. Let the brothers
be right. Give in to the game. Become handsome.
This was your plan.

Meanwhile you learned
certain wiles. Creamed your face
in secret. Avoided soap. And hoped, always hoped.
But the neck you scrubbed mercilessly, the way
you scrubbed your collars to remove
the shameful stain of makeup.

Now its dry flesh looks back at you
from the mirror, puckering its reprimand,
stark and insistent: yes, it says, yes,
you, too.
You have become what you had never dreamed of becoming:
old.