Thursday, February 22, 2007

O BRITNEY

by George Held


How free you feel hairless
Rid of that shock of sexuality

Maybe now the media will care less
About the Mickey Mouse Club babe

Maybe men will stop hitting on you,
Maybe you can rest, catch your breath

After years of celebrity, always on,
No school years, no college days

A lack of meaningful knowledge,
The constant glare of klieg and flashbulb

Yes, shears and razor to the rescue
Then rehab, no rehab, rehab again

O for a friend, a companion,
A mate, a partner, someone to trust

Someone to see the unadorned version
And love it, like it, care for it

Or revile it, like Sinéad after she shaved
Her head and music lovers cursed her

Or like the French girls who took
Nazi lovers during the occupation

Because the only French boys around
Were 4-F and poor, while the Germans

Were handsome and bursting with life
And provided cigarettes and whiskey

And money and those girls paid dearly
With their hair, their honor, their lives

And, O Britney, so will you, so will you
Though we love you for your teen version

Of a Jon Benet who went to the top,
Then toppled into the muck where

Marilyn and Anna Nicole and other
Blonde American bombshells end up

To wrench us, then cheer us up
With the thought: Who will be next?


George Held publishes widely online and in print. His tenth collection of poems, The Art of Writing and Others, will appear from Finishing Line Press this year. He lives in Greenwich Village with his wife, Cheryl.