maternity swimsuit A Poem About Miss America “I’m always looking,†says Miss America, “for what’s NOT to like.†Every time she looks in a mirror. Miss America onstage, her blond hair coils and spirals, billows and looms, to make her face look as small as possible. One high-heeled foot, placed just a little in front of the other to make her legs overlap so her hips look more narrow. Standing sideways, she twists her shoulders to face the audience head-on. All this breathless contortion to make her waist look itty-bitty. Onstage, instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment: Her face veiled with exercise videos. Her features, her eyes and lips, made up with hot-pink leotards and leg warmers. Her Miss America skin jumps and dances with a crowd of women, each of those women watching herself in a mirror. The film: a shadow of a reflection of an image of an illusion. She says, “My every glance in a mirror, it’s a secret market survey.†She’s her own test audience. Rating her curb appeal on a scale of one to ten. Every day, beta-testing a new upgraded version of herself-point-five. Fine-tuning to follow market trends. Her dress, swimsuit-tight, leotard-tight, her pantyhose run with women pedaling bicycles, going nowhere at a thousand calories an hour. “For the Talent portion of my program,†she says, “I’ll show you how to unswallow.†A bellyful of peach ice cream, a Halloween bag of miniature candy bars, six frosted doughnuts, two double cheeseburgers. The usual stuff. And sometimes, sperm. Her face swimming and flickering with aerobic work, her immediate ambition is to diminish initial buyer resistance. With a long-term goal of becoming someone’s long-term investment. As a durable consumer good. Exerpted from Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
