Sherry Chandler
The tyranny of body image in the United States is most oppressive for aging women with their ropy necks, sagging biceps, and feet deformed by decades of fashionable but ill-fitting shoes. “Manifesto” is my shout of defiance, my embrace of the aging body as a mark, not of shame, but of honor.
Manifesto, Age 59
Suddenly, in this summer of blackberries
and Trimble County peaches,
I can make pie crust.
Dig the devil Crisco from the can,
smoother than snow, whiter than cream. Plunge
into flour and fat, roll
up a lopsided baseball and leave the bowl
clean as cat lickings.
I have filled my yard with mints: hyssop,
mountain spearmint. catnip, lemon balm.
I grow garlic and parsley.
Janet says old women are free.
They say what they think, wear what they want.
I will believe her though she walks
an hour’s treadmill every night,
walked two maiden aunts
through dementia into death.
Suddenly, in this wet July of my fifty-ninth year,
I have bright red toenails. Who cares
that one is warped and ingrown. Old
women should flaunt their bony
misshapen
regal feet
First published in Kudzu, winner of their 2006 poetry prize.
Sherry Chandler is the author of Dance the Black-Eyed Girl (Finishing Line) and My Will and Testament Is on the Desk (FootHills Publishing). She has received support from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her work has appeared most recently in Umbrella, OCHO, and (forthcoming) Kestrel.