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.