A Spring Chicken - Mary Byrne

There was a time, I could cry…. If somebody died….

But that, all, ended when I got my new glasses!

For, they allowed me to see – how age had snuck up on me,

And, why men had quit making passes!

For, there were furrows ‘bate’ into my forehead –

As deep as George Foreman’s fat-free griddle

And the crows’ feet, tramped in, around my auld eyes –

Were as distinct as strings on a fiddle!

 

My young freckles had faded – to age spots upgraded!

Overall, I’d a pie-bald, half-rusted complexion….

And, as for my mouth – think M1 ROUNDABOUT –

For I’d lanes, shooting out, in every direction.

No exaggeration! My chin had begun procreation!

Overnight, one chin would give birth to another!

My neck was long-gone! It was more walrus than swan –

And my whole head was propped up on a cushion of blubber.

 

So make up wasn’t worth a feck, on face or on neck

For if I smiled, it cracked like mosaic, sporadically grouted –

All things considered my skin was like the last ‘pridda’,

In the arse of the bag – all wizened and sprouted.

Och, I should’ve left it at that, but being a perverse kinda brat

I stripped, ALL, off to reveal a body, flopping like jelly,

I had paid the ultimate price for eating big greasy fries –

And, above all, for my eyes being bigger than my belly!

 

My chest that, once, I’d been proud of –

For standing out, being pert and quite supple,

Had started to sag, like an auld leather bag,

And was now, keeping the wind off my belly-button!

My backside had suffered a landslide –

Its latitude had shifted, God knows how many degrees….

Like my bust, it must’ve got lonesome….

For it had moved in, as a lodger, at the back of my knees!

 

Mirrors don’t lie.  I just burst out and cried.

As a specimen of womanhood, I felt I was a dud.

What the new glasses showed there, was shaped neither apple nor pear –

In truth, I looked more like a turnip or spud!

There was nothing much for it – Money’d have to be borrowed –

For Botox, Liposuction and a BIG nip and tuck.

Well! You’d think I’d asked my Bank Manager, Sidney, to gimme one of his Kidneys –

 

I’ve never met such a nosey, begrudging, tight-fisted wee buck!

So! I lied through what teeth I had left in my mouth,

When he started to squeeze me – for ‘PRECISE INFORMATION’

Sez I “HOME IMPROVEMENTS.  STRUCTURAL DEFECTS.  CRACKS AND SUBSIDENCE.  OVERALL RENOVATION.

I mentioned ‘DRY LINING AND A SCAFFOLDING CREW’,

Threw in for good measure “STRIPPING DOWN TO BARE WALL”

And, out I did get, to my fat oxters, in debt,

And a Cosmetic Clinic was my first port of call.

 

This doctor, for starters, whipped out his big marker,

And drew black lines, on my body for ‘incisions and sutures’.

By the time he was finished, you could’ve ordered your dinner,

I was like the diagram of a carcass, you’d see, on the wall, in the butcher’s.

From each hindquarter, or rump, he said he’d carve off a lump –

To what WAS my waist, he’d attach a huge slurry hose,

Which would suck out the fat, into a ten-gallon vat…

And, just for the crack, he’d break and restraighten my nose!

 

Oh God, I did cringe when he grabbed my abdomen skin,

In a gesture, most dramatic and showy…

For, as he tugged it out, it was like a kangaroo pouch –

All floppy and flabby – and minus the joey!

So I had my BIG operation, with no complication,

And Doctor reassured me it had been “a remarkable job”.

Sez he “50 grand…. Was it? You put on deposit?

And when can I have the other few bob?

 

Since THAT heart attack, I’ve never looked back.

For, to tell you the truth, I’m afraid what I’ll see,

I get a fit of the shivers, just walking by mirrors –

At the surgical lift that bugger gave me!

 

For my eyes are that tight, I can’t shut them at night,

I’m stiff, as a corpse, that’s been vacuum packed.

My bottom’s hoisted that high, it’s said goodbye to my thighs,

And it’s welded, like a rucksack, in the small of my back.

My bust is that raw, from rubbing off my jaw –

It’s a killer each time that I slobber,

For I’ve to hunt to retrieve it, right down my cleavage

I’m out a fortune on bibs, just for eating my porridge!

 

There’s not a stitch nor a seam that could ever be seen,

For, do you know, what that shyster of a Doctor, did, to me instead?

He hiked up all my loose skin, from as far down as my shins,

And tied it in THIS knot, on the back of my head!

Now, I feel a dirty big eejit, for going under the needle,

For, inside, my biological clock keeps on ticking –

I’ve clogged arteries, bursitis, three kinds of arthritis,

While, on the outside, I look like a friggin’ Spring Chicken!

 

But the worst thing, by a mile, is this permanent smile,

When the only thing, I’d begged for, was a kissable pout –

Now, I’ve this all-weather grin – be it graveyard I’m in –

And dammed the one knows what I’m smiling about!