Florida Doll Sonnet
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
Copyright © 2015 by Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 4, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
“We wrote ‘Florida Doll Sonnet’ by email, two lines at a time, as part of a new collaborative series on our fascinating adopted home of South Florida. Miami ranks number three in the nation for cosmetic surgery. There is one plastic surgeon for every 10,000 people. We’re not sure how many patients one surgeon can have, but sometimes it feels like each treats 9,998 people and we are the only two without face-lifts.”
—Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton
Denise Duhamel
Born in 1961, Denise Duhamel is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, including Blowout (University of Pittsburgh, 2013).