[Originally published on Sept. 9, 2017]
We had a creed — I shop therefore I am;
We had a name — the honorific Ma’am,
that word of light whose bright acoustics beam
about the altars of the old regime.
In voices as enticing as coquettes,
or shredded into rags by cigarettes,
that extra syllable we had to say
entwined our common thread of DNA.
The echoes floated off like sylphs to roam
the vaults or congregate beneath the dome,
cacophony receding ever higher
toward the hush of an angelic choir.
The word’s domain (today as well as then)
was effortlessly schematized by men.
With y for matrimony, x for age,
a gentleman could graph it on a page.
It might, with like impunity, be said
to aged spinsters or the early wed.
A man thus only called that woman Miss
whom he might ardently, yet safely, kiss.
The women of the market took delight
in furthering a principle of light:
some cosmic bodies shine, the rest reflect,
thus God assigns the order being pecked.
On salutations given, or on ones
received, determines if we’re moons or suns,
while varied brilliancies from near to far
allow a planet to eclipse a star.
The Miss who measures some ornate grande dame,
when shopping down the street, is hailed as Ma’am;
the Ma’am by whom the counter girls are led
receives her customers as Miss instead.
As stars delineate a Swan or Bear,
we constellate around the Farberware,
while letting Milky Way adhesives paste
together rival pedigrees and taste.
The salesgirls and their customers enact
utopias as opposites react:
young thoroughbreds attend the old gray mare;
a Cleopatra shops beside Jane Eyre.
See Odysseys of goddesses and queens
explore the aisles of perilous vitrines,
while Iliads of vengeful wrath occur
amid the charges at the register.
Veneers of etiquette at times get cracked:
at least the different classes interact,
and those who live outside the guarded fence
can actually see the mythic one-percents.
Today the hordes at Ross, the few at Saks,
are cordoned off by more than railroad tracks,
but once upon a time we used to flex
our reputation as the fairer sex.
By contrast, men had ease upon their side:
they reigned as Sirs from youth until they died.
Here was a title that would neither force
itself on marriage, nor bewail divorce.
And Sir, from well-bred men-about-the-town,
might flatter not just up the chain but down,
thus camouflaging with benign largess
an undiscriminating laziness.
Must He then have advantage with his Sir,
no honorific left to render Her?
Must humankind keep drowning by degree
beneath the waves of social anarchy?
Your Internet divides what concourse blends:
you mingle only with your Facebook friends.
Your incivility’s so commonplace
one text would kill your mother, face-to-face.
Do you suppose your class distinctions slight?
Go on, try taking a commercial flight:
you’ll find the upper deck beyond reproach,
or grumble at indignities in coach.
Must decencies and Ma’am be swept aside
to let our gluttonies be satisfied —
our ballast sacrificed to the pretense
that informality precludes offence?
| Copyright © 2017, 2021 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
Eric and Susan prevail once again/triumphant 'twixt the paper and the pen. How is it that I never checked/the past tense of the verb IS pecked! Art that moves like made of plastic/suspicious gaze or orgiastic? Eric waxing tres sarcastic/when they trip the light ekphrastic!
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