I’m a contrived beauty.

If I were grim faced Hester Prynn

Framed in a solemn, white hat and loose, billowy drapes

Of religious chastity

I would fade into a sea of pale, droning faces

Yearning, like all of them, for the slightest indication

I was something singular. 

But that’s not me. 

I find the means from bottles

And jars, pallets, sprays, boots,

Liquid fantasy

And all the singularity I receive ordinarily  

Is wholly contrived.