Tuesday, February 25, 2014

At the Y

There are lines of television screens above the workout machines.
One is Fox News, the channel where all the news-women
are blonde babes, and all the men are vile.
Every ten or fifteen minutes is an anti-Obama clip.
Today features Karl Rove and Benghazi again.
One might guess Benghazi happened only yesterday.
On the next TV screen a woman is having a facelift
without any cutting of flesh.  Instead, her cheeks,
chin and forehead are stabbed repeatedly with a needle.
Doesn't she look great? her husband asks after the lift.
She smiles, pats her shiny, new face and says
she feels she's twenty years old again.
On the next screen over a girl describes her eating disorder.
She vomits at least eight times a day.  She's improving,
she thinks.  She can't promise not to puke again.

Ugh, I say out loud, and the African American man next to me asks
which screen I'd like him to shatter with his free weights.
Fox first, please, I say.  He agrees.  It's a racist show, he says.
Not many white folks get how racist it is.  
We stare at the blond newscaster together then,
at her red dress, her matching lipstick and heels
as she nods and smiles like a goddess overhead.

1 comment:

Urban Mermaid said...

I think television is especially toxic when you are purifying yourself with endorphins. Wouldn't it be great if there was another kind of input?

I used to sneak out of the Y pool after lap swims, all blissed out, trying to avoid things that would spoil it.