Whispers

I still carry the lies she told me

as I dressed her in fashion clothes

so many years ago, her perfect

hair, her tiny waist, her never-

changing body that could wear

anything, her plastic smile,

her perfect life, an unattainable

beauty we see today in cropped,

filtered, altered images that continue

the lie that one body shape, one kind

of brow, one perfect nose is the mark

of beauty — how shallow that lie 

but how deep it wounds us, 

an echo that keeps us from celebrating

the lovey truth of differences.

 —C.L. Fisher, April 2021

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